The Last Note
by Lysana
Summary: The entire story of Arda from Melkor/Morgoth and Sauron's perspective, from the Ainulindalë through the destruction of the One Ring, and ending with their final healing when Ilúvatar completes his music at the End of Time. IN PROGRESS! Chapter 11 Posted!
1. Chapter 1: The First Music

Author's Note: I've drawn illustrations for this story! To see the ones I have so far, click on the Homepage link on my author bio, then go to the Fanart section, scroll down to "Illustrations by Fanfic Title" and click on "The Last Note."

* * *

Chapter 1: The First Music

A single note sounded in the silence.

All the Ainur listened in awe, even the one who had sung it: Manwë.

Even Eru Ilúvatar seemed pleased. He nodded gently in encouragement, smiling at Manwë and then, encompassingly, at all of them. Then Eru the Father of All lifted his hands, and all of the Ainur began to sing.

Melkor started in wonder at the sound of his own voice. It was beautiful, rich and full and strong; certainly much better than Manwë's note or any of the other Ainur's voices.

Eagerly Melkor sang on, feeling the strength his notes lent to the harmony of his brothers and sisters. Soon, though, he began to feel dissatisfied. Lending strength was all he was doing, joining in with a song already being sung. He wanted to create his own music. Surely his voice was beautiful enough - surely he himself was wonderful enough - to deserve that glory.

Experimentally Melkor tried a new theme. It wasn't very different from the original music, but it made several of the voices around him falter.

That dismayed Melkor, at first. He had wanted to create beauty, not dissonance. But then he had a sudden idea. Perhaps dissonance itself could be his domain, defined as his by its very difference from Ilúvatar's original theme.

_And if I could make the other voices falter..._ Melkor smiled cruelly. It was the first time his face - or any of the Ainur's faces - had ever held such an expression. _Maybe I can bend them to my will._

Melkor deliberately changed his song again, not to an independent beautiful theme this time, but to a violent clanging as of breaking bells. _Come!_ his notes seemed to say. _Sing with me, and we will overthrow the might of Ilúvatar!_

It was a bold challenge, almost unimaginably so even to Melkor. A ripple of shock spread through the entire music as Melkor's thought of rebellion struck the minds of the other Ainur. Several of them sang notes and chords of protest, while others foundered uncertainly in their music, unable to ignore his forceful command yet also unwilling to join in.

_Come!_ Melkor sang again. He used no words, but his thoughts were clearly audible to the others in the sound of the music itself.

A few voices sang in answer to Melkor, leaping and crackling like a growing flame. _Yes, we will join you!_ they sang. _We will follow you into glory and domination!_

_Yes!_ Melkor agreed in jubilation. _Let all those join us who will!_ He stared proudly into the eyes of one after another of his fellow Ainur as he sang. _As for the rest..._ he sang in a deep rumble, and his followers sang along. _Their music shall be overwhelmed and destroyed!_

The wild, crashing music of Melkor and his small band of followers became filled with an implacable sense of cruelty and the domination of other wills. It sent shivers of terror and destruction echoing through the music, and Nienna cried aloud on a high note of pain.

Melkor paid her sorrow little mind, except for a feeling of pride that he had caused it. As her cry rippled downward into a gentle, descending chord of mourning, it was almost drowned out by Melkor's exuberant shout.

_Join me!_ he sang, a triumphant, strident note like a trumpet calling from the top of a mountain. One or two more voices willingly fell in line with his music. Several others, their owners' faces showing confusion and dismay, lost their hold on the original melody and seemed to have no choice but to sing along with Melkor's theme of power and pride.

Melkor looked around, seeking out the faces of those who sang with him. Most of them wore expressions of fierce agreement with Melkor's growing challenge to Ilúvatar, but nowhere did he see more fascination and delight than in the face of one of Aulë's servants: Culnaur, whose name meant a golden-red fire.

* * *

Culnaur's eyes lit with an orange glow. This kind of music was far more to his liking! He sang along, his face flooded with enjoyment, striving to bring other singers in line with his and Melkor's discordant melody.

One by one, a great number of them joined in; some faltering and overwhelmed in spite of themselves, others throwing themselves with vivid abandon into the wonderful, forceful dissonance. Eru's theme rose to counter it, and for a while there was great conflict of music.

Culnaur strove louder, feeling his companions around him, and their leader Melkor, doing the same. It was almost as if Ilúvatar was daring them to outdo his music.

_What if he is?_ Culnaur thought. _And what if he doesn't know we can?_ He laughed aloud in cruel, prideful glee, and that laughter became a part of the music.

Suddenly Ilúvatar raised one hand. It was a commanding gesture, the more so because of the smile with which Ilúvatar made it.

For an instant, Culnaur felt fear. This was his Creator! Yet even as a second musical theme arose in response to Eru's will, Culnaur's heart rebelled against the thought of being subdued.

_No!_ he thought, and the same feeling of defiance went into his song. _I will not submit! Melkor's music is the greater. I will help him in his victory!_

* * *

Melkor felt a surge of triumph as he heard Culnaur's musical shout. _My power is enough to hold the allegiance of my followers!_ he thought secretly, not allowing the fact that he had briefly doubted to reach his music. Aloud he sang, _Rally to me! Our power will prevail!_

He intensified his voice, singing now not only of crackling flame but of creaking, black ice; ice that took the music of Ulmo's waters and hardened it into something akin to Aulë's stone, but crueler.

Melkor sent his melody leaping and weaving from one to the other, burning fires to grinding frost. His followers kept pace around him, creating a wild, deafeningly loud music of destruction and tumult.

The music of Eru's two themes grew stronger as well. Yavanna's voice rose grandly among the others, lofty and strong, and the spirit of growth that her voice had poured into the music from its beginning took form as mighty trees, stretching to the heavens. Their branches spread and interlocked in vibrant strength, and their leaves poured forth joy to nourish the winds of Manwë, which roared louder and whispered more beautifully than before in an awed reply. Their roots took hold in Aulë's stone and soil, which they strengthened even as it protected them, and drank deep of Ulmo's water over which their shading branches spread.

Awed a little himself at the majesty of these new thoughts which Yavanna's music had brought forth, Melkor nevertheless prepared to destroy them. As several of Yavanna's close kinsfolk gave voices to the trees themselves, Melkor signaled to his cohorts. Following his lead they sang of even greater upheaval. The winds were whipped to such fury by Melkor's theme of rising dissonance that they ripped apart the branches of the trees. The wild music of evil tore apart Aulë's stone, laying bare the trees' roots, and loosed the restraints on Ulmo's water so that it arose in crashing floods to cover the land; and always there were the leaping flame and the crushing ice, wreaking destruction of their own.

At the last many of Yavanna's trees were felled. A great number of the Ainur, struck to their hearts by this tragedy, fell silent and cast down their eyes in profound sadness.

Then Ilúvatar arose from his throne, as he had done when he called forth his second theme. His face was grave, and his eyes were filled with sadness for his daughter Yavanna and all those who loved her creations. He raised his right hand and a third theme came into being, sung in grief and yet with abiding faith by the singers who remained faithful to him. Slowly at first, and softly, even those whose voices had died in sorrow joined in with this new theme.

A fear and rage unlike anything he had yet felt awoke in Melkor's heart. Surely a music this soft could pose no threat to the power of He who arises in Might! Yet by that very fact Melkor knew that this music would prove more dangerous to him than any; for why else would Eru have summoned it?

In defiance and rage, consumed by the flames of his own pride, Melkor sang of total domination. He refused even to listen to the third theme of Ilúvatar, though he was constantly aware of it as a thread of fragile yet undying resistance under the might of his own music.

The host of Melkor's companions, now grown great in number, sang with a unified will and all but drowned out the softer, sadder music with their powerful dissonance. Yet time and again, that seemingly lesser music turned the might of Melkor and his followers to its own advantage.

Melkor sang with a voice of crashing doom, and his horde of followers shouted and clamored along. Culnaur, ever mighty among the singers of evil, poured forth the vast power of his own will into his voice until it was second in majesty and strength only to Melkor's own; and many of those who sang along with Melkor's theme sang more loudly because of Culnaur's urging.

Still, it was not enough to destroy Ilúvatar's music as Melkor had first proposed to do. Both sides vied against one another for dominance, yet neither could achieve it.

Ilúvatar stood up a third time from his throne. He lifted both his hands, wrathfully it seemed to Melkor, and the Music of all the Ainur stopped in a crashing chord.

As the silence grew from seconds into minutes, Melkor looked around at the other Ainur, and then looked into his own heart, and he began to feel amazement and confusion at what he had done. _I... How did I move so quickly from a few quiet notes of my own to such total rebellion? From beauty to cruelty? What has been happening in my mind?_

The thoughts were his own, and he knew that none of the other Ainur heard them; but suddenly Melkor looked up into the face of Ilúvatar his father, and he knew that nothing in his own heart could ever be hidden from the one whose mind had made him.

Ilúvatar nodded once, sadly, looking into Melkor's eyes with an expression of gentle pity that confused him still more. Then Eru began to explain, with all the vast wisdom that was his alone, that each of the Ainur when they sang had been following only Eru's own will - even Melkor.

_No!_ Melkor's heart cried out silently in denial and true pain. _Surely my music was my own!_

Ilúvatar did not answer Melkor's thought, though the mightiest of the young Ainur knew in his soul that his Creator had heard it. Instead, Ilúvatar summoned the Ainur to follow him into the Void.

Once there, he waved his hand and a vision appeared. Awestruck, Melkor watched along with the rest of the Ainur as all the themes of their songs were made visible.

It was a beautiful world that Ilúvatar showed them, and Melkor wanted it. He trembled with the sudden force of his desire to rule such a place.

Eru spoke again, telling all of them how Melkor's flames and ice, and all the tumults of his rebellious music, had only served to enrich the beauty of the other Ainur's song. Then he turned gravely to Melkor himself.

"In your own pride you were undone," he told Melkor gently, "for though your song contributed in spite of you to the beauty of the Music, you did not keep to your first purpose, and thus you cheated yourself of your own heart's desire. You who began by wishing to create beauty of your own, in the end bent all your will on the creation of dissonance."

_Such a fool I was,_ Melkor thought, painfully ashamed. _Discord is never beauty._ The acute pain of his embarrassment turned sharp and hard inside him, piercing his heart, and kindling into a low-burning rage that simmered beneath the surface of his thoughts.

_Perhaps I can use this flame,_ a stray thought in Melkor's heart whispered to him. _It might make a substitute for the Flame Imperishable which I could not find, and I might use my own flame of anger to create things._ He dismissed it, but the thought remained.

Melkor bowed his head, feeling the center of his chest burning with humiliation from the position, and feeling his rage at being forced to feel that humiliation growing stronger, even as he tried to tell himself that it was all his fault.

Eru stood silent, waiting for Melkor's reply. Melkor tried to quiet the fire of rebellion in his eyes, but he knew from the near-physical heat he felt in their sockets that he was failing. He looked up at Ilúvatar anyway, knowing there was little else he could do. To his added shame and thus the fueling of his inner fire that was quickly becoming hatred, Melkor saw a complete understanding of his own heart and thoughts in Eru's face.

"I am sorry, Father," Melkor made himself say, wanting to believe his own words but not quite able to.

The kind understanding and acceptance that he saw in Ilúvatar's eyes, along with his forgiving nod - acceptance not just of his apology, but of his _actions_ themselves - almost made Melkor flee in renewed shame. Only his own strength of spirit, and the vast pride that still remained to him even in the midst of such terrible humiliation, allowed him to remain where he stood.

* * *

Author's Note: I made up Culnaur's name by combining two elements from the Silmarillion's list of name components: 'cul-' meaning 'golden-red' and 'naur' (listed under 'nár') meaning 'fire.'


	2. Chapter 2: Fires of Wrath

Chapter 2: Fires of Wrath

Though Melkor did not know it, he had indeed possessed the Imperishable Flame within himself from the beginning. It was the very spark of life and soul with which Ilúvatar had kindled him; and thus it was also the spark that kindled his own flames of rage and hatred, and his desire to prove himself by mastery of all things.

Thus it was that in all of Melkor's fires of evil, there was also something of Ilúvatar's glory. In the raging flames of battle, there was a light of fierceness and bravery that burned in every conflict and in every heart whose owner raised a sword against an enemy's weapon. In the vast, raging fires of destruction - those of unbridled wildfires, the deep-blazing hearts and violent eruptions of volcanoes, the deadly breath of dragons - could be seen the terrible grandeur of Ilúvatar. (In fact, many Ages later, Gandalf used a dragon's flames as the inspiration for one of his works of wonder in a fireworks display at a Hobbit birthday party. And even Gandalf - the gentle Olórin - laughed for a second at the hobbits' fear when they saw his performance.)

In Melkor's own heart, his love of things high and noble and beautiful burned at the center of his flames of greed and grasping ambition.

Thinking nothing of such matters, Melkor turned his attention to the world of Eä, and how best he might achieve what he wished for it.

_Of course,_ he told himself, _what I wish is to help everyone. I knew nothing of the Children of Ilúvatar when I created my discord in the Great Music. For their sake, I must control the violent uprisings of Nature that I have caused, lest they be destroyed._

He turned to Culnaur beside him. "Let's go," he said simply.

Culnaur, his own flaming red-on-yellow eyes fixed intently on the distant World, nodded fiercely. "At your will, Melkor."

Like a pair of hurtling flames, they sped through the Void toward the small, round world of Eä.

* * *

"What are you doing here?" Ulmo asked, facing Melkor with storm-gray eyes filled with doubt and reserved anger. "Did you not work hard enough to destroy this world in the Great Music, even before Eru gave it true Being?"

"That is exactly why I'm here," Melkor explained patiently, with an air of gentle humility. He didn't feel humble - he still knew he was the greatest of the Ainur, and he intended to make this world rightfully his by shaping it to his own will - but he was also wise enough to know that humility was what the other Ainur would want him to show, in the wake of his disobedience to Eru's will.

"I did not realize that Ilúvatar would do that," Melkor continued smoothly, as Ulmo listened in deep but tolerant skepticism. "Did any of you?" He could tell by Ulmo's troubled expression that that question had hit home.

"No," Ulmo answered finally, as he had to. He shook his head, heavy dark-blue hair swirling like the dark water that lapped at his feet from the ocean behind him. He was clearly troubled. "Your disobedience was grievous, but you could not know that it would have deeper consequences. You deserve a chance to redress the harm you have caused."

Melkor nodded quietly and made his voice soft and apologetic. "I will do all I can." He turned around, and Ulmo did not see the fierce joy in his small smile as he walked away. _Of course I will!_ he thought in his own heart. _The more I do to shape this world, the more it will be mine, and the way I want it to be._

He looked around, with the same curiosity that had often led him to explore even the Void itself in the time before the Music. _There is certainly a lot of shaping to be done!_ he thought, feeling a bit daunted but also eager at the sight that met his eyes. This world did not have the dismaying emptiness of the Void, but it was almost as dark, and terribly unformed in the substance it did have. Still, it had potential - and Melkor had seen Ilúvatar's vision of what it could become.

Many of the other Ainur were nearby, their faces showing interest and amazement of their own at this young world. They stood alone, or conferred quietly together, each one earnestly pondering the vast work they were all about to begin.

In the distance off to Melkor's right, a seemingly contrite Culnaur was deep in conversation with Aulë the Smith, his old master. Melkor was not concerned. He knew that Culnaur's loyalty to him was stronger than his old allegiance to Aulë.

Casting his gaze again across the wide, dark plains of Eä, Melkor frowned. _This will not do!_ he thought impatiently. _We must have light! Otherwise none of us will be able to see what we are doing as we create this place._ His black eyes flashed in his round, almost gentle-looking face. _What we need is fire._

Melkor could easily have created flames with his own power, but he had never been one to try and do everything alone. Instead he went in search of the Valaraukar, the first spirits who had sung with him in the Great Music. With the combination of their crackling fires and the flames that Melkor himself would bring into being, he would light up this realm of Eä so brilliantly that it would be seen from the halls of Ilúvatar himself.

* * *

"Why did you do it, Culnaur?" Aulë asked with grief in his voice. "You have sung with me for Ilúvatar many times before the Great Music, and never did you try to destroy anything! You always loved to help in the creation of wonders and beauty. I know that you have been a spirit of joy ever since Ilúvatar first made you. Why have you turned your joy to cruelty?"

"I was a fool," Culnaur said carefully. He was unused to subtlety and deception. _Still,_ he thought, looking into Aulë's honest brown eyes in his ruddy face, _it was from Aulë himself that I learned directness. It shouldn't take much to deceive him._

"I got caught up in the excitement," Culnaur admitted, deciding to weave the truth into his lie. "Melkor's music was just so quick and lively! I'm afraid I didn't have the patience to wait for Ilúvatar's theme to unfold."

Aulë laughed, putting a hand on Culnaur's very straight, shoulder-length black hair in the gesture of an amused older brother. "Yes, you always were the impatient one, weren't you, little fire?" he said. "I remember many times I had to caution you not to hurry and sing the end of a theme while its middle part was still developing."

"Now Melkor and I only want to help," Culnaur said, watching Aulë carefully while at the same time trying to look innocent. This was the lie. Would it be believed?

Aulë nodded, his face completely trusting. It was almost too easy. "I'm glad we have both of you back on our side again," he said with a broad smile. "We'll need your help. This world would be far poorer without your enthusiasm and Melkor's subtle works of beauty."

"I'm sure it would," Culnaur agreed, allowing a little pride back into his voice as he judged that this was the right time for it. "Of course," he added quickly - perhaps too quickly, but Aulë took no notice, "all of you will have wonders of your own to create, which I am sure we could not duplicate."

_Which is why we will take them from you,_ Culnaur thought implacably. _This world will be ours! And what harm is there,_ he reasoned, _if Melkor should wish to rule such a place? I will be his loyal captain, and aid him as I did at the Great Music. The world at Melkor's command will be a much brighter, livelier place than it would be under the solemn winds of Manwë!_

Aulë chuckled, seeing Culnaur deep in thought. "Already planning the first of those works, eager one?"

Culnaur gave him a dazzling smile, not bothering to hide his exultation.

"Exactly."

* * *

With a violent eruption, Melkor and his Valaraukar summoned a vast, roaring fire that tore apart the surface of the earth and spouted high into the sky. It flooded the area with an orange, flickering light. Several of the Ainur cried out in dismay at the suddenness of the explosion and the light.

Manwë, soaring in the air above the others, was caught in the updraft created by the fire's heat. He tumbled unceremoniously in midair for several seconds before he righted himself. Majestically, he lowered himself to the ground and stood before the others, his attitude lordly and commanding.

"What are you doing, Melkor?" he remonstrated. "Would you repeat the disruption you caused in the Great Music?"

Melkor stood at the forefront of his flaming demons, radiantly defiant yet still putting on an air of humility. The bright fire they had created leaped and seethed dramatically behind him, warming his back and sending his long, dark shadow along the ground between himself and Manwë.

Melkor knew that he made a spectacular sight. His eyes were as black as the Darkness itself, but a subtle fire burned in their depths. His short, soft hair, reaching barely to his shoulders, was golden, and it glowed with a light of its own.

Dipping that golden head a little, but never taking his fierce eyes from Manwë's quiet, noble blue ones, Melkor replied. "No," he said reasonably, in a tone of slightly wounded, protesting explanation. "I only created light so that we can all see to work."

Manwë stared measuringly at his brother Melkor for a moment. Then he nodded. "Very well," he said slowly. "Create your lights and your fires, if you will. You are certainly free to do your part in shaping this world that Ilúvatar has made. But consider whether you should ask the rest of us before you rip our works! Aulë put no less of his heart into that stone you so casually destroyed than you did of your own into the flames I see behind you."

Melkor smiled, showing his white teeth. Raising his head and looking off to the side, he called out to Aulë. "Surely you can spare a little of your stone, mighty Smith, for the sake of all of us having light to see by?"

"It is the nature of stone to be broken," Aulë said gravely. "Thus it was when I first sang of it, and thus it will be forever. I bear you no grievance, Melkor."

* * *

Ages passed, and slowly the Earth began to take shape. Melkor's fires were everywhere, so that if one had looked down on Eä from the Void, he or she would have seen it as little more than an orange, glowing sphere. Only the oceans of Ulmo remained dark: no matter how many fires Melkor lit beneath them, the deep cold water always quenched the flames long before they could reach the surface.

Standing on a jagged island of rock in a sea of flame, laughing aloud in fey exultation with his arms outstretched and his head tilted back, Melkor decided that the moment was his. He went to find his brother Manwë and claim the world of Eä for himself.

* * *

Manwë stared levelly at Melkor. "You have no right to make that claim," he asserted in a firm voice. Before the enraged Melkor could respond, Manwë stared up into the sky and lifted his arms. "Spirits of Ilúvatar's thought!" he called, his voice calm but intensely powerful. "Come to me and help me, for there is one here who would still defy our Father's wishes!"

A rain of bright, silver lights flew swiftly down through the sky. Melkor drew back in dismay. He recognized each of them: vast numbers of those Ainur who had most determinedly opposed his song in the Great Music. And the brightest of them - suddenly Melkor felt himself shaking in spite of the fierce defiance in his heart - was Varda, Queen of Light, of all the Ainur by far the most terrifying to Melkor.

"All of these will stand against your claim, Melkor," Manwë said.

"Then let them do so!" Melkor retorted in anger, as the first of the newly-arrived Ainur reached the flaming ground. "They too will call me Master in the end!"

Varda alighted in the form of a beautiful woman and placed both of her hands into Manwë's. Turning her head to look serenely at Melkor, she said, "Many will call you Master, but that will never increase your greatness. Instead, you will find yourself diminished."

Her arrogant words made Melkor laugh even through his fear of her. "Make trial of this, O Varda!" he proclaimed boldly. "You, and all the other spirits who come running to Manwë's call! Judge whether I am not the equal of all of you - nay, greater than all together!"

Raising his hand, Melkor summoned all the flames that were in sight. They came together in answer to his will, creating an onrushing wall that encircled Manwë and his folk, coming closer and closer with increasing speed.

The fires flashed across a vast lake of Ulmo's water, drying it instantly. Melkor smiled - but he rejoiced too soon.

Borne up into the winds of Manwë by the heat of Melkor's own fire, the lake's water reformed itself into a black, roiling cloud. With a furious crackle of lightning, the water fell splashing back to Earth and extinguished the shrinking circle of flames, leaving only vast, white plumes of steam.

Instantly Melkor caused more fires to erupt from the earth, fueled by his wrath at the failure of his first attack, but the Ainur before him were undaunted. They stared resolutely at him, ignoring the fires around them.

Varda, stepping slightly away from Manwë while still holding one of his hands in quiet devotion, lifted her other hand and thrust it out palm-first towards Melkor. A small, sparkling silver-and-white light appeared in front of her palm. Quickly it became so bright that Melkor could not look at it, but shielded his eyes with one arm from the dazzling radiance.

Varda's light grew so bright that Melkor could not hide from it. At the last, it filled his vision even with his eyes tightly closed and both hands over his face. The dazzling silver light struck terror into Melkor's heart.

Turning around in frustrated, shamed fear, Melkor ran away across the burning rocks. He took off from the ground and flew straight up through the sky, letting the world of Eä fall away behind him, until he reached the outer edges of the Void itself. There he turned, furiously, and stared longingly back down at the realm of Arda.

Even as he looked, his glorious orange fires seemed to dim. None of his servants, not even Culnaur or the Valaraukar, could stand alone against the spirits from whom Melkor himself had fled.

_But I will have it back,_ he vowed in his heart. _The world of Arda will be mine, and all those who would stand against me will be my slaves._


	3. Chapter 3: Thuringwethil

Author's Note: I've drawn and posted several more illustrations for this fanfic. If you like fanart, why not have a look at how I envision all this? Just go to my author bio, click on "Homepage," and then go to the Fanart section, where you will now find all of my illustrations organized by chapter under "The Last Note." :)

* * *

Chapter 3: Thuringwethil

"Go underground," Culnaur directed. In the distance, he could still see the glowing silver lights that had overwhelmed a large expanse of Melkor's flames.

He turned his gaze back to the Valaraukar, who stood in a tight group in front of him. There was no reason for dishonesty with his own allies. "Lord Melkor has suffered a temporary defeat," he said plainly. "I do not know how the other Ainur will react to us now, but you especially have been working closely with him, and I think it would be best if you were not in evidence."

The Valaraukar stared back at him, their bodies glowing with a darker, redder fire than the one that flickered in Culnaur's own eyes. "We will do as you say, for now," one of them said, stepping forward to act as their leader. The expression on his face made it plain that Culnaur was a lesser spirit like themselves, and not fit to command them for long.

_I command you only until Melkor returns!_ Culnaur told them silently and forcefully, allowing his own power to blaze forth in his eyes and his thought. Momentarily chastised, the demonic Ainur did not reply. They dived under the earth, leaving jagged, glowing crevices in their wake that soon cooled and solidified again.

Briefly gathering his thoughts, Culnaur glanced again at the silver lights that were Manwë and his people. He knew there would be little time before they came looking for him.

He sent a message from his mind to the minds of all the Ainur he knew to be faithful to Melkor's side. _Rejoin the others,_ he said, making certain that his thoughts reached every one of them and none of their enemies. _Tell them the truth: that you know nothing about what Melkor has just done. Do __nothing__ to oppose them until Melkor or I give the command._

Aware of the understanding and agreement of each of them, Culnaur turned his thoughts to his own situation. Swiftly as a flame, he moved across the broken ground to the place where Manwë and his followers were gathered. _I will not wait for them to come in search of me,_ he decided. _I will follow my own advice._

As he drew near, he saw many of the Ainur who had not previously come to Eä. The greatest of them was Varda, and she stood close beside Manwë as she had often done since the Ainur were first created.

Now she turned her clear, silver-gray eyes on Culnaur. "Manwë tells me that you and Melkor have been claiming to help the rest of us," she said, speaking in a voice as flawless as her singing had always been. "Now Melkor has attacked us all, saying that the kingship of this world is his by right. Why?"

"I do not know what he was thinking," Culnaur said, truthfully enough. "He said nothing to me about planning to attack you."

"Then he must have been working alone," Manwë said. Almost as if to himself, he added quietly, "I wish my brother would not do this..."

He looked squarely at Culnaur again. His blue eyes were sad, but also firm. "You may do as you wish," he said. "You had no part in Melkor's latest crime."

* * *

Some time later, Culnaur felt it was time to begin recruiting new allies and servants for Melkor. Among the first he approached was Thuringwethil, the Woman of Secret Shadow.

"I see no reason why I should not do as you ask," she said almost disinterestedly, with a slight flutter of her leathery brown wings, after Culnaur had finally asked her openly to spy on the other Ainur for him.

During the Great Music, Thuringwethil had neither joined nor opposed Melkor's rebellion. Instead, she had sung her own part from beginning to end exactly as Eru first assigned it, her notes and the tempo of her music completely unaffected by the chaos around her. She displayed the same reserve now.

She was not one of the most powerful of the Ainur, but that concerned Culnaur little. She would make a valuable ally.

"Then will you swear your loyalty?" Culnaur asked.

"I may as well," the dark, slender Ainu said languidly. "By the Void and the Fire, I will not betray you or Melkor before the world's end."

Culnaur smiled. "If you do not fear the Void by which you just swore -" Thuringwethil arched a shadowy brown eyebrow in amusement, "- then I wish you to carry a message for me."

Thuringwethil listened to the message, nodded once, then sprang into the sky. Her taloned wings beat strongly, carrying her up through the thinning airs of Arda and into the dark Void that surrounded it.

* * *

Looking down through the darkness at the bright world that was Eä, Melkor pondered what to do next. He didn't have to stay in the Void. He could have run back to Ilúvatar and given up on the World, but no! _No!_ He loved that world. It was his! At least, he felt as if it was his.

_I'm going back,_ he resolved again. _I will make the Kingdom of Arda mine!_

The memory of how he had been driven from that kingdom filled him with fury. _Varda caught me by surprise!_ he thought fiercely. _I won't be daunted by her light again!_ Glaring down at the World, Melkor suddenly felt a new thought growing in his heart. _I will bring Darkness to frighten Varda and the other Ainur,_ he decided. _I know the Darkness. I have wandered through it many times, while my brothers and sisters were content to sit in the familiar light before Ilúvatar's throne. I will turn the darkness into a weapon of terror to destroy and subdue them!_

As Melkor watched the glowing sphere of Eä, while the fire in his own heart turned into a dark, inky flame of malice, he saw that it was beginning to glow with other colors between the fading orange patches of fire. He drew closer to see it more clearly, fascination distracting him for a moment even from his rage.

A spreading abundance of green covered wide expanses of the earth, dotted with a softer brown than Melkor had seen among the shades of Aulë's rocks and stones. But he recognized these colors from Ilúvatar's vision of the world.

_Yavanna,_ he thought. As he looked, moving closer still, the green resolved itself into fantastic shapes, at once elegantly simple and endlessly varied in their repetition. These strange, feathery fronds and tall brown spikes were not the trees that Yavanna's song had wrought in the second theme of Ilúvatar's Music, but Melkor felt the same awe. _And they drove me away!_ he thought in renewed fury. _I was not there to see her create these wonders._ His thought turned hard as ice. _Well, she will be there to see me destroy them!_

Deep pools and flowing streams of blue water were also appearing, interspersed with Yavanna's green and seeming to speed its growth. Many of the lakes looked somehow familiar, though nearly all of them were obviously new. Melkor looked harder. It was not the water, but the _shapes..._

_How dare he!_ Some of Ulmo's new lakes were in the very pits that Melkor himself had carved to hold his fires.

As Melkor stared, breathless with rage, he caught sight of movement along the edge of one of those stolen lakes. It was Aulë and Yavanna, not as he had seen them before, but arrayed in forms like those of the Children of Ilúvatar from the vision that Eru had shown. They walked hand in hand, and paused as Yavanna took hold of one of her leafy, growing fronds, several times her own height, and pulled it towards Aulë to show it to him. Aulë laughed, and even from this distance Melkor could see wonder in his face as he touched the living green.

Now that he knew what to look for, Melkor could pick out many of the other Ainur in similar forms, walking among the soft, young forests or splashing with youthful joy in the lakes and streams, as Melkor's own untended fires continued to fade. The Valaraukar were nowhere to be seen.

Melkor seethed with a furious hatred. _I can become visible in such a form as well,_ he thought, half-aware that he was already changing. _But mine will not be like theirs. I will terrify them with my power, and destroy all the things they are reveling in that they will not offer to me as my rightful due! Then the world will be ordered as I choose, and they will bow down before me and create their works only at my command and under my lordship._

Melkor's new form continued to take shape, crafted by his hatred. He took the darkness of the Void into himself, replacing all of the bright, glowing colors that had once been his. He still had the same round face, but now it was black as night and framed by two sharp demonic horns rather than by fluffy golden hair. The subtle, majestic fire that had always burned deep in his eyes expanded to drive out everything else, as the fury inside him expanded to fill his soul.

Staring down at Arda with eyes of raging flame, Melkor saw something coming towards him. Soon he recognized Thuringwethil, a lesser spirit who had remained completely unmoved and unconcerned by everything that had happened during the Great Music.

_Why do you come here?_ he challenged her silently. _None but myself has ever sought out the Void!_

Thuringwethil stopped in front of him, folding her wings until they were nearly closed, but continuing to move them slightly for balance as she hovered. She looked straight into his face. "I bear a message from your servant Culnaur," she said matter-of-factly. "He says: 'I am gathering strength among the Ainur. Return whenever you choose. We will be ready.'"

In the midst of his rage, Melkor felt a sudden surge of appreciation for the loyalty of his friends.

"Thank you, Thuringwethil," he said gravely. "You will be rewarded."

Thuringwethil shrugged her thin, brown-clad shoulders. "I need no reward," she said unconcernedly. "I serve because I choose to."

Melkor nodded, fleetingly amused but not terribly surprised by her answer. "Very well. Tell Culnaur that I will be arriving soon."

"As you command, O great Melkor," Thuringwethil said almost impudently, looking at him a bit sideways out of her deep, dust-brown eyes. Then she flew silently away, back towards the earth, and Melkor gave himself over once again to fury.

_They shall not have my world!_ he thought savagely, and sprang downward from the Void, following a slightly different path than Thuringwethil had taken.

* * *

References: Kids' science materials can be great resources for fantasy writing! The following two have been invaluable for this chapter and the next.

_(Book) "Plants Without Seeds" by Elaine Pascoe, c. 2003. Series: A Kid's Guide to the Classification of Living Things._ This book, and its wonderful constantly-updated webpage of links to related sites, provided a very enjoyable way to resolve a seeming contradiction within the Silmarillion. (Near the end of the Ainulindalë it says "... the Earth was becoming as a garden for their delight," but then "Of the Beginning of Days," describing a time Ages later, says "... and Yavanna planted at last the seeds that she had long devised." Hey presto - ferns, liverworts, and horsetails!)

_(Video) "Volcanos: River of Death" from Tropical Visions Video Production by Goodtimes Home Video, c. 1987._ A fun, BRIGHT colored Hawaiian volcano documentary! It will no doubt be indispensable throughout the entire process of writing a fic dealing with Melkor's destructive powers and most especially for a story involving Sauron!


	4. Chapter 4: The First War

Chapter 4: The First War

Melkor alighted in a deserted area, some distance away from his fellow Ainur, crushing some of Yavanna's smaller plants beneath his feet.

_Culnaur!_ he called silently. _Report to me! What has been happening?_

_I am coming, my lord,_ Culnaur replied, distant but strong. _There is much to tell. Things do not go as ill for us as it might seem._

Moments later he arrived, in visible form now like the others. When he saw Melkor, his face broke into a cruel grin of approval. "Now that is a form suited to your power, Lord!" Then he became serious. "Why did you not call on us to stand with you?" he asked.

"I did not expect a battle," Melkor answered plainly. "I was caught unprepared by Manwë's reinforcements, and I did not even think of calling for my own. But I will need all of you to fight alongside me now."

Culnaur nodded, pride and loyalty flashing in his red-gold eyes. "There are more of us than there were when you left," he said. "I have recruited many of the Ainur to your service in secret. Some I have instructed not to reveal their allegiance openly - unless you command it, lord - but many more are ready to do battle alongside us."

"Yes, I noticed Thuringwethil," Melkor said. "You have done well to gain _her_ allegiance! Now, where are my Valaraukar?"

"They have gone underground," Culnaur replied. "I sent them to hide until your return. The rest of us, including myself -" he laughed shortly, "have been telling the other Ainur that we are innocent and know nothing of the attack you launched against them."

"Then it is time to reclaim my world!" Melkor said.

* * *

Manwë obviously suspected nothing. Standing amidst the deep, lush growth of one of Yavanna's new forests, next to Yavanna herself, he seemed completely relaxed and insufferably pleased with himself.

"You have done beautiful work, Yavanna," he said admiringly. "To think that this is only the beginning of what you have imagined in your song!"

Melkor did not give the Lady of growing things time to answer. He strode into the forest, pushing aside the tall green fans and the brown stalks that grew among them, and crushing to death the small, leafy green plants that covered the ground.

Yavanna cried out as if Melkor had crushed one of her own hands. Manwë stepped lightning-swift to stand before her, though she was nearly his equal in power. "What are you doing back here, Melkor?" he demanded.

"This world is mine, brother!" Melkor retorted in fury. "I am taking it back now, and you will not stop me again!"

_Now!_ he commanded. All of his Valaraukar erupted out of the ground at once a few feet away, leaving a gaping crater with flames shooting out of it fast enough to carry great rocks into the air with them. Yavanna and Manwë stumbled away from the rim, heated air blasting their hair back from their faces.

The Valaraukar circled back down to earth and began tearing up more of the ground, withering and destroying an ever-expanding swath of Yavanna's plants. Melkor fueled the fires of his demons with poison, so that what had once burned clean now poured out thick, choking clouds of roiling black smoke.

"Why, Melkor?" Yavanna cried out from somewhere in the blackness. "Why do you kill my young plants? I have seen in your eyes that you love them."

"Because this is not where I choose that they should grow!" Melkor declared. "This ground must be cleared for my other purposes. You shall make more for me, where I tell you to."

As the earth continued to break apart, Melkor heard Manwë's voice, heavy with grief. "Come, Yavanna! The plants here are lost. We must rally our brethren for a line of defense." There was a brief pause. "Please..."

Melkor laughed in triumph as he heard them leaving. He knew that at the same time, Culnaur was leading a vast force against others of the Ainur, destroying more of their works.

_No line of defense will stop me!_ he warned the departing Manwë. _All of you will submit to me, or be destroyed along with all that you have made!_

Manwë did not reply. Melkor paid him no more heed, but turned his attention to the Valaraukar. He left half of them to continue expanding the inferno they had created here, and sent the others burrowing in all directions to break through the surface and wreak ruin in other, distant places. Then he went in search of Ulmo.

* * *

"No, you must not do it that way!" Melkor commanded. "It is my design that will be followed!" He summoned a mighty geyser of flame and boiling stone, up through the heart of one of Aulë's nearby mountains, and sent it spewing into the air to choke the valley that Ulmo thought should become a lake.

"It is at the design of Ilúvatar that all things shall be ordered, Melkor," Manwë replied. "Not yours!" He sent a roaring wind to push aside Melkor's flames.

"Is this the defense you thought to raise against me?" Melkor asked. "You forget that Ilúvatar taught me all that he taught to the rest of you!" He lifted his right hand, half-closed it in a clawlike, grasping motion, and twisted it in the air. Manwë's wind changed direction, driving Melkor's leaping fires towards another forest of Yavanna's that stood on one edge of the valley.

Ulmo abandoned his attempts to fill the new lake. He raised up most of the churning gray water in a colossal wave and sent it to drench the fern-woods as protection against the fire. Meanwhile, Manwë regained control of his wind and once again began sweeping the flames back towards the hollowed mountain they had erupted from.

_Culnaur!_ Melkor called, knowing his lieutenant was nearby. _Destroy this lake for me!_ He smiled grimly. _I have a forest to kill._

Turning to face squarely towards the now-soaked forest, Melkor stretched out both of his hands towards it. "Yavanna will pay the price for your arrogance, Ulmo!" Summoning a cold hatred from deep within his heart, Melkor began to pour another aspect of his power towards the primeval plants.

* * *

Culnaur quickly surveyed the scene as he strode over the rim of the contested lake. Ulmo seemed completely engaged in trying to protect Yavanna's forest against Melkor's attack. Yavanna herself was not visible, but the vigorous green of her plants, which seemed almost to be growing taller and stronger as he watched, made him suspect that she was standing somewhere among them.

Catching sight of the rivers of flame pouring into the valley, he smiled. Manwë, his face at once furious and determined, was using his winds to blow the fires back towards the mountain that Melkor had torn them from - but the wind could move only the flames themselves. The liquid, seething stone underneath continued to flow unopposed towards the water in the lowest part of the valley.

_This will be my attack,_ he thought. Deprived of Melkor's attention, the molten stone was beginning to cool slightly, forming a thin, gray crust. Now, standing directly in the lava's path, Culnaur willed it to burn hotter.

The stone crust broke apart, the fragments melting into spatters of liquid orange as they flew. The released lava flowed swiftly forward, parting to swirl around Culnaur until it surrounded him, reaching as high as his waist. Unharmed by the fires of his own power, Culnaur laughed aloud for sheer delight.

Suddenly an onrushing wall of water came gushing over the far rim of the valley. Culnaur stared in surprise for a few seconds until he saw Ossë, the servant of Ulmo, literally riding the wave as it approached.

"Move aside, Culnaur!" Ossë shouted in unbridled fury. "You have no right!"

"What right do you have to oppose Melkor?" Culnaur retorted. "You cannot defeat him!"

"Maybe," Ossë growled. "But I can certainly defeat you!"

As Ossë and his torrent of water drew near, Culnaur summoned more lava from the volcano that Melkor had created. It flowed freely in answer to his will, the hottest parts glowing exactly the same blazing shade of red-tinged gold as Culnaur's own eyes.

Ossë's wave crashed headlong into the leading edge of the lava. Great clouds of steam went up from the meeting of water and molten stone, billowing up to match the tops of Yavanna's treelike ferns on the valley's rim far above. Vast amounts of water were consumed in an instant, but at the same time much of the lava was cooled again, solidifying as it had done before.

Struggling against the surprising power of Ossë, Culnaur poured more heat into the lava, fueling it with his own heart's fire. Ossë, snarling, stood in the middle of an ever-widening river, drawn up from the distant ocean by the power of his furious will. Second by second, the waves and the fires tore at each other.

Slowly, inevitably, Culnaur won. Gradually his lava filled the valley, cooling as it flowed into the water, but always with more behind it to break through or flow across the surface of the newly hardened stone. Finally, though he had fought valiantly, Ossë had no choice but to turn and leave the seething valley with what remained of his river of seawater.

* * *

As the battle between Culnaur and Ossë raged behind him, Melkor focused all of his attention on Yavanna's dripping green forest. Attacking the very water that Ulmo had sent to protect the plants, Melkor drew upon the bone-chilling cold of his own envy and froze the water in reality as he had done, with song alone, in the Great Music.

Yavanna's anguished cry of "No!" could be heard from somewhere deep within the forest. Melkor laughed, a harsher, crueler sound than the world of Arda had yet heard. As he watched, a thick, transparent layer of ice formed over each of Yavanna's plants, individually covering each one of their delicate fronds. The effect was beautiful, like a forest of living jewels, and at the same time it created a scene of shocking destruction. Melkor felt a rush of fierce pride for its creation, short-lived though he knew this doomed forest would be.

Red eyes flaring with triumph, Melkor turned to face the stricken Manwë. "Now let even your Varda stand against me!" he exulted. "No spirit in Arda will be able to stop me. I will tear apart all things that you will not give me for my own!"

* * *

Many ages later, far to the North, Melkor was wrenching a cold mountain range up from the ground of a verdant plain when he heard a rushing of footfalls coming towards him like a thundering wind. Turning around in anger to see who dared to approach, he saw in the distance a mighty figure that he recognized at once, though he had never seen this spirit in visible form within the World.

_Tulkas!_ Outrage surged up in Melkor's heart, as well as a sudden fear that he struggled angrily to master. _Surely he is less powerful than I!_ Melkor told himself fiercely, but the sheer speed of Tulkas' approach woke a deep fright that would not be silenced.

"Rebel!" Tulkas shouted in a deep, booming voice, his face filled with rage like a mighty stormcloud. "You have been hurting our brothers and sisters! Do not think you will get away with it!"

Despite his fear, Melkor drew himself up and stood boldly, facing down Tulkas with his new mountain range behind him. "Take care who you challenge!" he shouted back, allowing no trace of fear into either his face or his voice. "I am the greatest of the Ainur!"

Tulkas laughed, mirth suddenly flooding his features. "That you may be!" he said, now very near to where Melkor stood. "But I will still defeat you, Melkor!" He laughed again.

The laughter stabbed Melkor to his heart. How could he, the incomparable Melkor, be the target of ridicule from anyone? It was too much to bear.

"Now begone!" Tulkas thundered, less than a dozen strides away. "Or I will crush you as you have crushed the things our brothers and sisters love!"

Almost before he realized it, Melkor turned around and fled. Straight up the sides of his new Iron Mountains he ran, springing from their peaks into the same Void that Varda had driven him to long before.

_Culnaur!_ he shouted with his mind, keeping hold of his anger and determination in spite of the choking shame he felt. _Send Thuringwethil to me._


	5. Chapter 5: Utumno

Author's Note: Two of the biggest hugs in the world to Araloth the Random and Sauron Gorthaur! You guys figured it out! *hugs*

Araloth guessed the truth about Culnaur in a private message to me a few weeks ago, and now Sauron Gorthaur has done the same in a review. They're both right - he's Sauron! Go reward them (and yourself) by reading and reviewing one of their excellent fics!

Everyone else: had you guessed by now? Remember at the end of Chapter One I told you I had made up Culnaur's name out of components from the Silmarillion's index - but I never said I made up Culnaur himself! XD! I hope you all liked my little deception in honor of Sauron.

Enjoy this chapter! I had a fantastic time writing it. :)

Once again, I've posted some more fan art for this story - not much, but some - on Razzle's and my website, which you can reach from the Homepage link in my author profile.

Also an extra-special thanks to my sister Razzle - she's done me the honor of drawing me a fantastic picture of Aulë and Yavanna, which is now duly posted with my own illustrations. Now see here: if YOU - yes, I mean _you_ - would draw any fanart for one of my fics (this one or any other), I'd be grateful to you too, and post it on my homepage as an illustration if you let me!

* * *

Chapter 5: Utumno

_I'm getting tired of this,_ Melkor thought in a black rage. _I will not be chased into the Void again!_

In the humiliation and fright of his narrow escape from Tulkas, Melkor had traveled much further into the Void this time than he had when Varda had driven him here before. Looking back, he could no longer see the world of Eä at all. His mind, as he stared into the darkness around him, imagined all sorts of scenes of the Ainur who were his enemies: celebrating, rejoicing at his absence, retaking for themselves the world that ought to be his...

It seemed as though a very long time passed with no sign of Thuringwethil's arrival, but Melkor suspected that it was only his own impatience.

_Besides,_ he thought, feeling slightly calmer, _she will need to wait for a time when she can leave without being noticed. She and Culnaur would never risk allowing the others to discover her secret allegiance._

_And,_ he reflected, looking around at the trackless depths of the Outer Void, _she will need time to find me._

Suddenly Melkor felt Thuringwethil's faint, distant thought washing over him, like an inaudible strain of music. The silent melody seemed to rebound, bouncing back the way it had come. When he heard it again a moment later, still too distant to carry words, it seemed to come with the sense that Thuringwethil, who had been searching, now knew exactly where he was.

Seconds later, Thuringwethil herself flew into view amid the blackness. "Culnaur has sent me, as you ordered," she said at once, coming to a halt in front of him. "Do not despair. We are all still ready to fight for you."

"I know," Melkor said, feeling once again the deep joy that came from knowing that his friends and servants would stand by him. "But not yet," he told her. "I must choose my time. You and the other spies will be the key to that; you must tell me of anything important that happens in Arda, so that I will know when my best chance to reclaim it comes."

Thuringwethil nodded, her eyes intently fixed on Melkor's demonic face as she listened to his instructions.

"I will wait here for now," Melkor said. "Tell Culnaur that I have not given up, and that he is to be ready for war when the time comes. I will expect to hear from you again soon."

Seeing that Melkor had no more to say, Thuringwethil turned silently and flew away. _I will return soon,_ she promised as she left.

Melkor felt a brief stab of emptiness as the only other living being in the Void departed, flying back towards the warmth and light of Arda. Then he brushed it off. _I will not be here long,_ he told himself. _I have stayed far longer in the Void, exploring it alone and traveling far through its darkness, many times before the Music._

_Still, it is harder when I did not come here by choice._

* * *

Thuringwethil reported to Melkor often, as she had promised. At first she had little to tell him that he could not easily guess on his own. The Valar and Maiar, as the greater and lesser spirits among the Ainur had started to call themselves, were busy; they were once again subduing Melkor's fires, the Valaraukar again gone deep underground; Yavanna had replanted her forests and was improving on them, bringing forth many kinds of plants that she had not yet created when Melkor left...

Finally, though, there came an occasion when Thuringwethil arrived in a swifter flurry of wings than usual, almost seeming excited by the news she carried.

"Tulkas and Nessa are going to be married," she said. "The Valar think 'their' world is finished. Manwë has called for a feast to celebrate, on Almaren."

Melkor recognized the name of the island where Thuringwethil had told him the Ainur now lived. It was situated in the center of Arda's main land-mass that was called Middle-earth, halfway between the two lamps that Aulë and Varda had placed far to the north and south to light the world for Yavanna's plants.

Laughing with a feeling of long-awaited satisfaction, Melkor gave Thuringwethil a single, decisive nod. "Here is what we will do," he said. "Tell Culnaur, the Valaraukar, and all those who are openly known to be loyal to me, that I want them to travel to the north of Arda and meet me here in the Void. I will come closer to Arda," he assured her, "so that they can be sure to readily find me. Not all of the Ainur have your skill at navigation and searching in the dark!"

Thuringwethil smiled at the compliment he had paid her.

"As for you and the other spies," he said, "I want you to go to the enemy Ainur and remain among them for now. If there is something I should know, I can trust any one of you to come and tell me. Otherwise, simply wait and watch until I call for you."

Melkor explained the details of his plan to Thuringwethil, as they traveled side by side for most of the distance back to Arda. In sight of the round, jewel-like world, Melkor stopped. "I will remain here until the others arrive."

The messenger of Culnaur briefly acknowledged Melkor's instructions, then flew swiftly down to Arda to carry them out.

* * *

_It's about time!_ the leader of the Valaraukar thought in fierce satisfaction. _Finally, we will rejoin Lord Melkor and resume our quest to rule the Earth, instead of skulking underground like some of Yavanna's seeds!_

He was the same Valarauko who had challenged Culnaur's right to command him and his brethren after Melkor's first exile. In after years, when the Elves had risen to give names to all that they saw, he would be known as Gothmog, the Dread Foe. But for now his name was still Urruin, the blazing red fire, as it had been since Eru first created him.

Now, Urruin laughed to himself as Culnaur eagerly led them all towards the North of the world. What difference did it make, after all, if that impetuous yellow-eyed Maia led the journey?

_Let Culnaur think he rules us,_ Urruin thought. The Valaraukar, rightly named the Demons of Might, knew only one master: Melkor, He who arises in Might, the most powerful of all the Ainur.

Deep red flames running along the entire surface of his body with a fierce crackling sound, the great Urruin ran powerfully alongside his fellow demons and the host of other Maiar who counted Melkor as their liege.

* * *

Melkor smiled as he saw the great numbers of his friends and servants rushing towards him like a wide wedge of fires and bright lights through the blackness of the Void. In the forefront was Culnaur, as he always was; close behind him came Urruin and the other Demons of Might, and thousands of the other Ainur.

_I am strong enough now to overcome any challenge,_ Melkor thought, seeing the vast might of his horde. A rush of pride and satisfaction overwhelmed him. _Varda and Manwë and the others will have no chance._

"Now," he said, as his followers drew near, "it is time for us to retake our world! But first we will build ourselves a place of strength within it, so that no one may defeat us or drive us out. This is why I have called you to me; so that we may all move as one and create this fortress before the other Ainur can stop us."

He looked down at the world of Arda, as all of his servants listened to his words in quiet respect and eager anticipation of the battles and victory he described. There, on the island of Almaren... He could see that the feast of which Thuringwethil had told him was already underway. The Valar were merry, heedless, and they watched in innocent abandon and joy as Nessa danced wildly on the grass in front of them all. Tulkas - the sight of him sent a stab of hate through Melkor's heart, and he felt his eyes flaming hotter - was reclining on the grass closest to Nessa, laughing in delight and gazing at her with an expression of awe and incredulous happiness. Any thought of his enemy Melkor was obviously the furthest thing from his mind.

"This is our time," Melkor said, sweeping his eyes across the host of his servants. "Let us go, now!"

The vast numbers of Maiar followed Melkor down in a rushing torrent of shadows as he sped, noiseless and invisible against the larger darkness of the Void behind him, across the ramparts of the towering black Wall of Night that was set at the edge of Arda. Having crossed that dividing barrier, he travelled unerringly for a point in his Iron Mountains, the unfinished but massive range that he had been raising from the cold northern ground when Tulkas had suddenly driven him away.

That place, very near to the spot where he had been surprised and shamefully defeated by the great Warrior, was the one where he had long planned to return and build his fortress. He knew, though he had seen it only with his heart and not his eyes, that there was a vast system of caves beneath the mountains at that spot. The giant rounded caverns, like massive bubbles in the stone, had been formed by the upheaval when Melkor wrenched the mountains up from the ground where they now stood. Because he had been interrupted in the middle of his creation, the surrounding stone had not had time to shift and fill in the spaces left by that which had become the peaks, and the earth had solidified in that partially-formed state when Melkor left.

There would be a lot of work to do, Melkor knew, in turning the wild, accidentally created caves into a coherent, defensible fortress. Still, he was not dismayed. Far from it; his craftsman's soul actually looked forward to the project.

_I will make it a beautiful home,_ Melkor told himself as they drew near to the place he sought. _A fitting palace for the Lord of the World._

* * *

Utumno was the name that Melkor chose for his new fortress. It was indeed a beautiful place, majestic even in its raw form as a mere system of partially interconnected caves.

As Melkor and his servants began to delve connecting passageways between the caverns, refining and shaping the vast chambers with their hands and their wills, the dark beauty of the place quickly grew even more spectacular. The stones that made up the rough walls and massive, arched ceilings were a dozen shades of cool grays, deep black, and coldly blue-tinged colors, giving an impression of ancient, imposing power and peerless elegance. Dim light, showing the colors and the echoing empty spaces to far better advantage than a brilliant illumination would have done, played endlessly about all the caverns and hallways.

In some of the deeper caves of Utumno, rivers of fire flowed, burning their way through the deeps of the earth. These spectacular forges lit the chambers through which their twisting routes lay with a glowing, splashing radiance of orange against the dark walls, seeming to bring them life of their own as the colors eternally shifted and changed.

Some of the other chambers, generally those nearer to the surface, held captive trickling flows of water. Threading their way down, perhaps, from forgotten streams that flowed among the Iron Mountains far above, or else rising from hidden springs within the compass of Utumno itself, these tiny sparkling waterfalls or bubbling pools splashed heedlessly at first, scattering across the caves and filling them with a mist of tiny droplets.

Slowly, though, Melkor and some of his servants shaped the wayward water to their designs. Where there had been only aimless, scattering fountains, they built awesome elegant pillars and sculptures of twisted black ice. The few droplets that were allowed to remain free, spraying wildly about the fluted ice columns, were reflected in a thousand darkly glittering points of glory from the diamond-smooth, gleaming surfaces of the fantastic frozen shapes.

In time, as the thousands of years passed, some of these sculptures would gradually change to stone as the water carried it into their substance in tiny, invisible bits. For now, though, they were spectacular enough as what was simply called the Dark Ice, one of the earliest wonders of Melkor's kingdom.

In a central cavern, far less vast than some of the others but perfectly formed and exceptionally beautiful, Melkor carved himself a throne with his own hands. The floor along one edge of the cavern was slightly raised, and it was on this natural dais that Melkor placed his imposing throne. It was built from the stone of the cavern itself, its sides sloping downward in broad, graceful strokes to blend with the identical rock of the dais below, with which it formed one single mass of stone.

Seated on that throne, in the heart of his wonderful fortress that was as close as Melkor's imaginative heart could ever call any project to being 'finished', Melkor laughed aloud in exultation. He saw joy and fierce wrath reflected in his servants' eyes as well. Culnaur, once a servant of Aulë and always a smith in his heart and soul, was openly and ecstatically victorious at the success of their magnificent creation.

Still, Melkor knew that they had only completed the first and easiest stage of their battle. Strong as his host already was, he still felt a driving need to try and convert more of the Ainur to his cause before striking a decisive blow against his enemies.

* * *

Far to the south, Melkor found the maiden named Arien where he had suspected she might be; tending the bright gold flame of the southernmost lamp of Arda, which was called Ormal.

Melkor watched her silently for a moment, pondering how best to approach her. She was a close kinswoman of his own Valaraukar, but had not joined in with him as they had at the Great Music. Rather, she had thrown her own bright, flaring music fearlessly against them all, seeming to denounce her kin who would follow such a traitor. Somehow, as one fire set against many, she had time and again headed off some of the best plans that Melkor had tried to unfold in his melodic theme. Now, the strongest of the Valar was more than determined to sway her to his side.

"Do you not weary of serving the tame, empty lordship of Manwë and his cohorts?" Melkor asked her, appearing suddenly in the lofty reaches of the air by her side as she guided and shaped the living yellow fire with her bare, unprotected hands. It did not harm her, for flame could not burn flame. "Swear loyalty to me, and I will grant you power and glory beyond anything Manwë would ever allow!"

Arien looked at him with disdain in her bright eyes. "Begone! I will have nothing to do with you." Then she pointed her delicate nose firmly into the air and calmly returned to her work with the great lamp of Ormal at the top of its lofty pillar. Her manner made it clear that she would be oblivious to anything else that Melkor might say or do.

* * *

"When I fought against Ossë," Culnaur said, in a tone of open interest that left no room for any false pride, "he was well nigh a match for me. He would make a mighty ally in our war. And I also saw that he was impatient and filled with fury. He is one of the strongest of the Maiar, yet Ulmo allows him only the mastery of the shores. I think that if you were to offer him power, he would listen."

Melkor smiled to himself, nodding slowly as he listened to Culnaur's words. "Yes, you are right," he said. He definitely needed a way to overcome the unassailable might of Ulmo's oceans; this could well be it.

But it could not be done without preparation. He would not risk such a reaction from Ossë as the one that he had gotten from the lesser Arien. What might ensure his agreement and make certain his loyalty?

Suddenly Melkor imagined in his mind a vision of the two white-and-pale-pink horns on which Ulmo blew his music of the deeps; his Ulumúri. He had often seen Ossë staring in longing and envy at those horns, his blue-green eyes - the color of fierce shallow waters - raging with the desire to hold such instruments in his own mighty hands.

"I must plan," Melkor told his loyal servant Culnaur, a design already starting to form in his own mind. Turning swiftly, he headed for one of the dark caverns where his ice sculptures were slowly being formed. _I will snare Ossë with his own greedy lust for power,_ he thought savagely. _I will create for him the Helcarómi._

* * *

Melkor closed his eyes and imagined the shape of the Ulumúri in his mind. At the same time, he imagined his own improvements on the design. _Yes, this is how they will look,_ he thought.

Opening his eyes, still holding the image of the instruments he planned to make in his imagination, Melkor reached out with his dark hands and started to manipulate the shifting flow of ice in front of him. This one was still mostly shapeless, rising from what had once been a fountain of cold water bubbling up from the cave floor. It would be the perfect source for the pure, stone-hard ice he needed.

Gradually, Melkor started to shape the nearest part of the ice into a flaring, spiralling trumpet. Most of his frozen sculptures were dark, a chill black color with hints of deep green or blue, but under the force of his will this creation grew much colder, diamond-hard and almost white. The same shades of green and blue, though lighter than usual, were shot through it as highlights.

A row of sharp spikes marched proudly along the outer curve of the horn's spiral, like the rungs of a tiny staircase. It bore a striking resemblance, as did the Ulumúri themselves, to the conch shells that Melkor had sometimes seen washed up on Ossë's beaches.

_The Maia of the Shores ought to like these,_ Melkor thought, pleased. He finished the first of his Helcarómi and set it aside. Then, smiling with the joy of creation, he took hold of the fountain of unformed ice again and began crafting the second mighty horn.

* * *

"Why should I serve you?" Ossë demanded angrily, standing near the shore with the savage blue-green water lashing around his knees.

"What good has it been doing you to serve Ulmo?" Melkor asked him in return. "But if you will take me as your new liege, I will give you all of the realm that he has been keeping for himself." He smiled as Ossë's eyes lit with an old, jealous rage. "We will overthrow Ulmo," Melkor went on, "and I will make you Master of the Sea."

Ossë visibly hesitated, and Melkor saw his chance. He brought out the two Horns of Ice that he had created and brought with him for this purpose. Ossë gasped wordlessly at the sight and reached out his right hand toward them in an almost-reflexive gesture of longing. Then he froze, glancing sharply at Melkor.

"Those are not the Ulumúri," he said suspiciously. "What are they, and how do you come to have them?" The words were cold and reserved, by Ossë's standards, but his eyes raged with intense admiration and longing.

"I created them," Melkor said simply. "They are better than the Ulumúri! Those horns only create music, but the song of my Helcarómi will allow you to create ice of your own, freezing solid any area of the Sea that you choose." He smiled in triumph, sensing an imminent victory. "Yes, Ossë: _you_," he said. "I am giving these horns to you now, to use in my service as we both do battle against your jealous lord Ulmo and all the others who stand with him."

Melkor held out the two Helcarómi in his hand, offering them to Ossë. The fierce Maia stared at them for a second, new power and old loyalty doing obvious battle in his heart. Then he took a step forward and seized the two horns in his strong right hand. Melkor let go at once; Ossë's very action of taking the horns was a promise that he would serve.

Ossë blew a triumphant blast on one of the horns. Melkor wondered suddenly, in something halfway between alarm and amusement, whether Ulmo would arrive at once to investigate the cause of the sound.

Staring at the pale swath of ice that now extended through the water in front of him, Ossë laughed in harsh, wild joy. "I will not fail you, Melkor!" he promised. "Your war of conquest is now mine, as well." Around the two Ainur's feet, the waters whipped and churned wildly in answer to the warlike feeling that Melkor knew was rising in Ossë's spirit.

* * *

Culnaur stared up at the incredibly tall pillar of Ormal, feeling daunted and exhilarated all at once at the idea of trying to overthrow such a mighy work of his old master Aulë.

"Well?" Urruin demanded aggressively. "Are you going to stare in admiration, smith, or will we obey Melkor's command and topple this dazzling pillar?"

Culnaur smiled at the Valarauko and his brethren who stood behind him. "We will destroy it, of course," he said calmly. Arguing would only give the impression that he, Culnaur, was no stronger than the other Maia. Instead he assumed an air of confidently assured command. "Let us begin."

This battle for Melkor's kingdom was being fought in two places at once, the entire length of Middle-earth apart. Melkor had sent Culnaur and many of the most powerful of his other servants to attack the southern lamp of Ormal. Melkor himself, with the rest of his army, would be arriving even now at the pillar of the cold blue Illuin far to the North.

Culnaur reached out with his two arms straight in front of him and pressed both of his hands, palms flat, against the surface of the mighty lamp's pillar. Arien was not here at the moment; for now, Culnaur and his forces worked unopposed.

Closing his eyes, the rebel smith sent his thought deep into the stone of the earth. He was half-aware of the Valaraukar around him, who were using their own flames and the proud power of their bodies to begin blasting away the base of the pillar. Shaking his head, completely unaware of the slight swinging of his straight black hair, Culnaur allowed himself to ignore the demons. He focused instead on his own task.

_There..._ Far beneath the pillar, he found it: the living streams of fire that pulsed beneath this entire Earth. There were several of them near, and he bent his attention and his will on the closest one.

The liquid orange flames, as he touched them with his mind, felt almost like a part of his own soul. Smiling fiercely, his eyes still closed, Culnaur drew the fire swiftly up through the earth to bubble and seethe at the base of the pillar.

As the fires rose around his feet, Culnaur opened his eyes and looked. There were two golden lights fighting for dominance now; the blazing lake of fire that he had just summoned, and the yellow-gold radiance of the lamp of Ormal far above.

The pillar shook, as the Valaraukar's power and the flames that Culnaur had called forth from the earth tore away at its supports. Culnaur stepped swiftly back; the flames could not hurt him, but he had no wish to try and dig himself out from the bottom of a towering mound of broken stone.

The Valaraukar, who were creatures of earth almost as much as fire, had no such concerns. They continued to rip and tear away at the pillar even as it toppled.

With a massive crash, the pillar finally fell. Its vast gold lamp shattered as it struck the earth, and flames even fiercer than the ones Culnaur had commanded poured forth from its ruined shell. The golden flashfire raced across the ground, burning everything it touched.

Too late to stop the destruction that had just occurred, Arien's brilliant form appeared on the horizon. Her flaming voice carried through the air, crackling in fury, as the sound of her wrathful questions raced ahead of her towards the place of the destroyed lamp. Behind the swiftly approaching Arien, there was a thundering rumble of many racing feet; the powerful Maia maiden was not alone.

Culnaur stood his ground, as had been planned. Around him, the Valaraukar did the same. This was an important part of the battle strategy; they would draw off and distract the pursuit for as long as possible, giving Melkor - who would be the opposing Valar's real target - time to escape.

* * *

With his own hands, Melkor tore apart the pillar of Illuin and crumbled the lamp at its summit. He had help from the many lesser Maiar who accompanied him, but as he felt the vessel of the lamp splinter between his crushing hands and saw the loosed blue flames go racing across the surface of the land, he felt that the accomplishment was his alone.

Above the roaring of the fire as it consumed miles upon miles of Yavanna's forests, Melkor suddenly heard a new sound. It was the powerful music of hoofbeats - and with it came a trail of showering silver sparks, racing unerringly in Melkor's direction. Seconds later, there came a triumphant, musical horn-call that struck awe into even Melkor's heart.

He had not yet seen the Vala in this form, but he knew the descriptions that Thuringwethil had brought him. It had to be Oromë, the older brother of Nessa who was now Tulkas' bride.

_Oromë the Huntsman!_ Melkor suddenly realized that he was standing frozen in alarm. Some of his servants were still standing near, looking anxiously up at him to await his commands. Others had already scattered at the first sight and sound of Oromë's pursuit.

_Flee!_ Melkor directed the ones who were still there, almost impatiently. Turning towards the safety of Utumno himself, he ran.

Very nearby to his right, Melkor heard the crashing music of Ossë's Horns of Ice that Melkor himself had given him. The seas were rising in chaos and fury, adding their power to Ormal's and Illuin's flames as Melkor's war wrought destruction on the lands of Middle-earth.

"You may not do such things, Melkor!" Manwë's voice shouted, carried on the wind from behind the escaping Vala. He looked back, heart racing in sudden fear, and saw that Oromë had been joined by many of the other Valar and Maiar. Manwë was towards the rear of the onrushing army, but Oromë still rode at the front, only slightly ahead of the Maia called Eönwë who rode atop a great red horse and carried Manwë's blue banner.

Not far behind them was Tulkas, running on foot as always and quickly passing one after another of the mighty horses among whose flying hooves he raced. Melkor nearly panicked. Turning his face forward again, he forced himself to ignore everything behind him and concentrated on running. He had never fought so hard for mastery over the muscles of his own body, and he wondered if he would truly make it.

_Utumno is still too far away!_ Terrified, and suddenly pierced through with an old embarrassment as he heard the familiar dismissive laughter of Tulkas, Melkor continued to run.

* * *

"Onward!" the huntsman Olórin called out, urging his horse forward until its hooves struck the ground like a hail of stones. "Do not let him escape! He must be stopped!"

Quickly pulling ahead of him, Lord Tulkas ran like the living speed of fury. Olórin watched in frustration as the great warrior neared Melkor's fleeing form, only to reach out and grab at nothing as the dark rebel whisked in through the gate of his underground fortress and disappeared.

The stone gate slammed closed in front of Tulkas' face. Furious, the Vala slammed a mighty fist into the stone, but although tiny slivers flaked off and flew away from the surface, nothing else happened.

Olórin reined in his horse, burning with frustration. _We came so close! What horrors will he unleash next because we did not stop him today?_

* * *

Author's Note: I didn't expect it when I started writing this story, but I've decided to give the perspective in a few of my scenes to some of the other characters besides Melkor and Sauron. I can't help myself: they're all cool too, and I want a chance to imagine and show their thoughts from the inside!

Now, in the very last scene of this chapter, there has been another startling new development. Olórin isn't a bad guy; he's Gandalf, of course! Again, I couldn't help myself. He deserves the screen time he couldn't get in the Silmarillion. So he and some of the other good guys will also get the perspective occasionally. Just think of it as the reverse of what you see in many fantasy novels, where the stories are focused on the heroes' adventures and feelings but the villains occasionally get the spotlight. :)

As you can see, I'm getting more excitable with the fangirl Elvish I'm inventing! I have no idea if "Helcarómi" would even be understandable to a native speaker of any kind of Elvish, or if someone like poor Finrod, for instance, would look at me in confusion. Anyway, here you go: made up of 'helka' (listed under 'khelek-'), meaning 'icy, ice-cold'; 'róm-' described as "A stem used of the sound of trumpets and horns" (Valaróma, etc.); and my desperate hope that sticking 'i' on the end, like the Ulumúri and so forth, somehow makes it plural.

The Helcarómi themselves are exactly as much my creation as they are Melkor's: in both cases, they are based on Ulmo's Ulumúri, but are otherwise original.

The fantastic ice sculptures of Utumno were my sister Razzle's idea. Thanks, Razzle! I love them! :) As you can see, for once I didn't feel like naming them in fangirl Elvish, so I've just given the English version and called them the 'Dark Ice'.

I have chosen to make the lamps of Ormal and Illuin respectively gold and blue, because of the components 'mal' and 'luin' in their names, which are listed in the Silmarillion's index as 'gold' and 'blue' (even though 'mal-' is supposed to be a prefix! XD). And really, a gold-and-blue radiance wouldn't be all that different from the daylight of a world under the Sun, would it?

The name 'Urruin' is my own invention, once again comprised of elements from the invaluable index of the Silmarillion. (Thank you, Christopher Tolkien! The countless hours you put into that index and everything else you've done for these stories have NOT been wasted on us fans!) It is formed from the prefix 'ur-' meaning 'heat, be hot' and from 'ruin' meaning 'red flame'. And by the way, I know I'm using mad combinations of Sindarin and Quenya. I like it this way - it gives me more freedom to make my invented Elvish names sound the way I want them to!

I also translated Urruin's canon name of Gothmog to my liking. The first part, 'goth', I have taken to have the same meaning of 'foe' or 'enemy' that it has in the name Morgoth. I couldn't find anything at all for 'mog' so I decided to just arbitrarily translate the whole name as 'Dread Foe' because I like it that way. :)


	6. Chapter 6: Building a Realm

Author's Note: WARNING! So far, this fanfic has not even come close to living up to its PG-13 rating for violence. In this chapter, that will start to change. With the appearance of animal life, Melkor suddenly has living, feeling beings around who are much more vulnerable to his cruelty than his fellow Ainur are. I do not intend at any time to write anything tasteless or gratuitous, but there will be injuries, suffering, and deaths among living creatures from here on out. *sigh* I suppose it's a pattern that is familiar in our own world: many people who commit violent crimes and acts of cruelty against their fellow thinking beings learned their behavior first by abusing animals. Melkor would very likely have been no different.

* * *

Chapter 6: Building a Realm

"They have left," Thuringwethil reported to Melkor and Culnaur a short time later. The three of them were gathered in the throne room at Utumno; Culnaur had returned some days earlier after leading Arien and her allies a merry chase across Middle-earth, and Thuringwethil had only just arrived to tell them what the enemy Ainur had been doing.

Melkor felt a sharp stab of triumph at the knowledge that _he_, for once, had been the one who succeeded at driving the others away.

"They have finally managed to contain the fires of the spilled lamps," Thuringwethil continued, "but most of Yavanna's forests are gone. Almost all the lakes have evaporated or sunk beneath the drying mud of their beds, and the animals have fled and scattered." She smiled slightly. "Námo said that the Valar and the Maiar must give up on Middle-earth for now, and Manwë agreed. He is going to lead them west, across the Sea, to find a new place to make their home."

"Follow them," Melkor said at once. "Continue pretending to be one of them. Do not return unless Culnaur or I send for you. If there is anything we must know about, send another to tell us."

"I understand," Thuringwethil replied promptly. "I have been absent too many times lately. They must not be allowed to suspect my loyalty to you." She looked steadily at Melkor, then Culnaur, making it plain that she meant both of them. Then she bowed regally, her wings and arms stretching out to the sides in an almost-dramatic gesture, and departed the throne room through a tunnel that led to a secret side entrance of Melkor's fortress.

* * *

His heart storming in triumph, Ossë raged. He had just used his wonderful Horns of Ice, the Helcarómi that Melkor had given him, to freeze solid the ocean's surface at the uttermost south of the world and then in the north. Now, at the edge of that northern ice, he summoned waves with his own power to break it apart.

It was for the sheer joy of destruction that he did it, and no other reason. Filled with a fierce, surging feeling of crashing power, he watched and laughed madly aloud as his waves tore the vast sheet of ice into towering pieces. They slammed violently against each other, roaring and grinding as they rocked in the churning, dark waters.

Ossë considered freezing the ice solid again, but he shook his head, foam-colored hair flying wildly around his tan face. _No, I will leave it this way,_ he thought in satisfaction. _The Grinding Ice; the Helcaraxë created by the Helcarómi. That is what I will call it. Melkor will be pleased._ He laughed aloud again. "And I am already pleased."

Turning from his chaotic, violent creation, Ossë headed south to see what else he might do with his newfound power. He moved swiftly along the shore, but stopped suddenly when he saw a sad, familiar figure standing in front of him.

It was Uinen, his wife. Her gentle beauty struck him, as always; she stood waist-deep in the blue water, her infinitely long aquamarine hair spreading gently away from her in all directions across its surface. She smiled, though her eyes were filled with grief, and reached out her pearly arms towards him.

"Ossë. Stop this. You are doing yourself and the ocean nothing but harm."

"Uinen, leave me alone!" Ossë said, though his heart twisted with love at the sight of his wife. "Or else join me! Melkor is a better lord than Ulmo."

"Melkor is no true lord at all," Uinen said gently, "only a master of slaves. I would not see you become one of them, my proud husband." She took his hands and drew him close to her, letting her silky hair fall around his shoulders.

In spite of himself, Ossë started to feel calmer. "Uinen," he said softly even though his heart was still raging with the remnants of his destructive wrath. "I can never resist you." He let his head fall forward and rested his face on her shoulder, putting his own arms around her.

A moment later, he looked up again into her gentle, wise blue eyes. Uinen smiled. "Come with me, dear wayward Ossë," she said in a voice filled with love. She took him by the hand, and he allowed her to lead him away.

Even as he moved through the shallow water beside his beloved Uinen, Ossë removed his two precious Helcarómi from his belt and clutched them tightly and possessively in his left hand. _I will not give these up!_ he thought.

* * *

Melkor stared in fury, standing invisible without his physical form on a jagged black rock that stood up from the sand near the ocean's shore. Some distance out to sea, Ulmo was smiling benevolently down at a rather chastened-looking Ossë. Melkor's powerful new servant was standing quite calmly before the Lord of the Sea, hand in hand with his wife Uinen.

"I pardon you," Ulmo was saying. "But you must never again serve the evil Melkor."

"I understand, Lord..." Ossë said, as Melkor's heart raged in silent disbelief at the betrayal. "But -" His eyes lit with a gleam of half-frightened greed, and he held up the pair of frozen horns that Melkor had made for him. "What about my Helcarómi? Surely I can still use them in your service."

_You will not!_ Melkor raged inside. Before Ulmo had a chance to reply - though Uinen was already turning towards her husband with an alarmed look - the lord of Utumno summoned an exploding blast of fire that appeared in the air almost on top of the Helcarómi.

Ossë gave a sudden cry and let go of the now-steaming horns. They were gone before they could fall from his hand to the water's surface.

Melkor felt a stab of grief as he watched his wonderful creations melting into steam, but it was lost in his greater rage. _How dare Ossë turn against me?_ he fumed.

Uinen put a gentle hand on Ossë's arm. "You are better off without them, my dear," she said.

"You know," Ossë said slowly, with a strange expression of relief in his eyes, "I think you might be right." He put an arm across his wife's shoulders and smiled softly at her, as the waters around them grew completely still and tranquil.

Shaking his head in disgust at this open display of sentimental affection, Melkor turned and departed invisibly back to Utumno.

* * *

Several thousand years passed. Yavanna's forests gradually returned, and Melkor allowed them to. Under his power, they became dark and filled with terrifying monsters. Wolves, spiders, nameless things on silent feet: the animals that Yavanna had designed were quite susceptible to the power of Melkor's malice. Almost by themselves, many of them began to prey on each other under the deep shadows of the branches and leaves.

Prowling on his eight thin, jointed legs, Melkor walked in the form of a vast spider through a section of the forest that had recently been torn apart by his Valaraukar. His many eyes stared around in cold, grim satisfaction at the wounded trees and bare black areas of scorched dirt.

_The Valaraukar deserve their enjoyment,_ he thought, his fanged mouth smiling. He picked his way forward, then froze as still as the trees, listening to a tiny sound.

A squirrel was scampering through the branches above him, less cautious than its fellows as it hurried to find out whether it was safe to return to the cooling forest.

Melkor looked up, his great round head moving silently above his dark body. _It is not safe,_ he thought in slow glee. _Not when I am here._

Noiselessly, he half-turned to face a great, solid tree that stood a few paces away. He scurried up its wide trunk, then edged along a branch that led towards the foolish squirrel who had stopped in an adjacent tree.

The squirrel's eyes barely had time to show fear before Melkor lunged. His needle-sharp fangs pierced straight through the center of the animal's body. Panicked and in sudden agony from Melkor's venom, the tiny animal let out a single desperate squeak before the poison completely paralyzed its body and voice.

Melkor knew from the look in the squirrel's eyes that it was still in pain. He laughed, a dry, scraping sound, and quickly began to wrap it in his fine grayish-white spidersilk. He did not know exactly why this was such a satisfying thing to do; it seemed to go along with the form he wore.

He finished wrapping the animal seconds later. It was now a small, rounded bundle, which he hung by a single strong thread from the branch on which the squirrel had just been sitting. Dropping easily to the ground, Melkor settled down to wait. Soon, he knew, that squirrel would make a tasty tidbit for his spider-self.

* * *

Days later, Melkor returned in his own demonic form to the burned forest where he had captured and eaten the incautious squirrel. He enjoyed the sight of the destruction that the flames had caused, and he reveled in knowing that it had happened under his rule.

Suddenly, he saw a tall, green-clad figure walking towards him through the trees. He recognized her at once. _Yavanna!_ It was not the first time, nor the hundredth, that she had returned to Middle-earth since the Valar and Maiar departed into the West.

Drawing back behind a thick screen of evergreen trees, Melkor watched her silently. He could have attacked her, but he did not care to face a host of the other Valar if they should suddenly descend to assist her.

Yavanna put a hand on one of the trees, then knelt down to touch a small half-withered shrub with her other hand. The two plants grew strong again at her touch, and the entire area seemed suddenly greener and more vital, but there were many miles of wounded forest in all directions. Shaking her head, she stood up again. "My poor _olvar_..." she said sadly. "My sleeping, rooted ones..." It was a lament.

_You sound like Nienna!_ Melkor thought, almost laughing aloud at the comparison.

Yavanna looked up sharply. Perhaps she had half-heard his thought. "Melkor?" she asked sternly. "Are you near?" She looked around with her knowing, deep-green eyes. "You have been doing much harm to my kingdom, in the name of making this world your own."

Melkor did not reply, but he listened in a sort of compelled fascination to her words, even as he tried to feel condescending.

"Do not continue to destroy everything you see," Yavanna warned, standing tall and imposing among her trees - though Melkor was taller still. "Sooner or later, you will doom yourself."

She turned to leave. After a few paces she looked back over her shoulder, staring fearlessly straight at the spot where Melkor stood concealed by the trees. _Concealed from Yavanna, by her own trees?_ he suddenly wondered. She certainly appeared to be looking right into his eyes.

"And I still know you love my creations," she added softly. Then she turned to face away from him again and vanished into the forest, so suddenly that he thought she must have relinquished her physical form for the moment.

Melkor stared at the spot where she had disappeared. He could neither deny nor admit to himself the truth of what Yavanna had said.

* * *

Culnaur smiled with joy. Melkor had asked him to find a suitable place and design a fortress of his own, to serve as an outpost of Utumno in their kingdom that now spanned all of Middle-earth. This place that he had found was more perfect than he could have imagined.

_I will call my fortress Angband,_ he thought, looking down through the uneven rocky archway into the first of the massive, jagged caves that stretched for miles below. Excitedly, his hair flying back in the face of the hot wind that rose from the depths, Culnaur stepped through the archway and hurried downward to explore his new stronghold.

* * *

Many years passed before Culnaur was satisfied with the basic form of the underground fortress. He and his servants shaped it extensively, bringing order and a bold symmetry to the wild place they had first found.

It was a brighter, more vibrant place than the coldly elegant Utumno; Culnaur was an exuberant spirit of fire, and he crafted his home by those standards of beauty.

The earth, too, was different here, having its own unique quality in this place so distant from Utumno. The stone in some of Angband's caverns was a dark, bold black, while in others it was a clamoring riot of many shades of brown, ranging lightest to darkest from a warm tan to the deepest umber.

There were far more flames beneath Angband than there were in the depths of Melkor's own mighty fortress. The earth here seethed and pulsed with many rivers of liquid fire, and a great number of the deepest caverns were filled with the orange light that seemed to be so much a part of Culnaur's spirit.

He smiled, standing by the side of one of those glowing rivers as the heat of it blasted harmlessly against his handsome, cruelly joyful face. _This chamber will soon be one of many forges for Lord Melkor's designs,_ he thought in pure exhilaration and savage delight. _And when the Firstborn awaken and Melkor claims them as his subjects, I will teach them how to make things here... just as Aulë once taught me._

* * *

_In what form shall I terrorize Yavanna's little __kelvar__ animals today?_ Melkor mused. _A bear? No; I was a bear last time._ The memory of that savage day pleased him, but he wanted something different now.

He smiled. _I will be one of the most terrifying._ Melkor called to mind the appearance of one of the great, predatory lizards whose race had grown so swiftly under his power. Once hardly larger than rabbits, this variety now towered above all but the oldest trees.

The demonic Vala shifted his own form to match. His teeth grew long and razor-sharp, his skin rough and pebbled in shades of gray and green. Wicked, curved claws sprouted from the fingers of his now-scaled hands.

Standing three times as tall as he had a moment before, Melkor grinned the full length of his elongated, deadly muzzle. His powerful tail swished behind him, lashing against a pair of trees that shook thunderously with the impact. As one of the mightiest tyrants of that ancient animal world, Melkor stalked away from Utumno and into the deep forest.

Many hours later, with the blood of several deer he had just torn apart still on his jaws, the reptilian Melkor stopped as he heard an unfamiliar sound. Curious and filled with a sudden intense interest he could not explain, he stepped cautiously forward through the trees until he came to the edge of a clearing. It was there that the sounds were coming from, but what were they? He eased his vast head forward until he could just see through the leaves.

Melkor stared breathlessly into the wide clearing, overcome with incredulous, awestruck wonder. Dozens of slender, beautiful people were there, walking quietly about or sitting on the soft grass, talking and laughing together in delicate silvery voices... and some of them were _singing._ Melkor had never heard music before from any but the voices of his fellow Ainur and himself, and his heart was filled for a moment with such wonder that he forgot to feel anything else.

The Firstborn Children of Ilúvatar had arrived.

* * *

Author's Note: Yes, Melkor is supposed to be more or less an allosaurus at this point. The Witch-king's steed, much later in the story, will be a pteranodon. Dinosaur randomness! Deal with it.

References: A kids' science webpage with a nifty picture and short description of an allosaurus. I found it by looking up 'Allosaurus' on Yahoo! Kids StudyZone. I've put a link to the page at the bottom of my author bio.


	7. Chapter 7: Akin to Estë

Chapter 7: Akin to Estë

Looking into the clearing filled with Ilúvatar's Firstborn, the Elves - for they could be nothing else - Melkor gradually felt his wonder change to hatred. _They are so beautiful - but they are free! They are not mine!_

Snarling through his long, draconic teeth, Melkor burst into the clearing, jaws snapping in rage. The Elves screamed in sudden fear and scattered before the approach of such a monster.

Most of them fled into the trees and disappeared, but one turned for an instant to look up at Melkor in terrified surprise. Melkor, darting his great head forward on its powerful neck, opened his jaws wide and snapped them closed around the golden-haired young Elf. Turning back into the forest, he carried his lightweight, struggling burden far away from the other Firstborn and their clearing.

* * *

His heart furiously raging at the beauty and freedom of the Elves, Melkor was about to bite down hard and crush the one he held, but suddenly he stopped himself.

_No,_ he thought. _This is not some animal to be destroyed in rage and counted as no loss! This is - or will be - my slave._ Opening his jaws, he let the no-longer-struggling Elf drop to the forest floor. The mountains above Utumno were quite nearby, and would long since have been visible if not for the trees that hid all view of everything outside the forest.

Changing back from the savage lizard he had been to his own demon-form, Melkor looked at the Elf he had captured. The Firstborn lay completely unaware with his limbs in disarray, his features very pale in contrast with the bright red blood that ran from his many wounds. He was barely breathing.

_I've seen this with the animals,_ Melkor thought in sudden concern. _He will bleed to death if I don't do something._

For a fleeting moment, looking down at the gentle, youthful face and the eyes that were closed in what almost looked like an expression of trust, Melkor felt that possibility as if it would be a tragedy in itself: the loss of this beautiful, fragile being from the world...

But the feeling quickly passed. Melkor looked again, and saw only a potential slave, one that was about to die without ever calling him 'Master'.

Creasing his brow in thought, Melkor knelt beside the yellow-haired Elf's limp, bleeding body and drew on a power that he had never really used before. Indeed, he had given it very little thought since he first learned it from Ilúvatar as a musical theme, long before the Great Music. Still, he did know some of what each of his brothers and sisters knew - and that included the healing powers of the gentle, quiet Estë.

Melkor ran his hands over the Elf's wounds, concentrating on shifting the light, soothing melody he remembered so well into something that could be used in the real, physical world. He sensed the blood flowing through the nearly lifeless youth's veins, and felt as well as saw the places where that flow was diverted from its natural course to run out through the wounds that Melkor's own savage reptilian teeth had created.

_Those wounds must be closed,_ he thought. Applying his will to a more delicate task than any he had set himself for long Ages, Melkor directed the Elf's living tissues to repair themselves. Several minutes later, his patient remained in a deep, unaware sleep but was now only exhausted, no longer wounded to death.

Looking down at his own pale hands where they rested on the young one's thin chest, Melkor realized that he had unconsciously shifted back to his original form from long ago. He shook his head in irritation as a tuft of soft golden hair fell forward into his eyes. Summoning the familiar hatred from deep within his heart, he deliberately reverted to the dark, horned form that he had come to think of as his own.

_Now,_ he thought, _this prisoner is sleeping, but I need a way to keep him from escaping when he awakes._ Looking around, he spotted a long, thin vine hanging closely twined around a nearby tree. He recognized it as a variety in which he had seen animals trapped and strangled, at times, when driven in some headlong flight of terror by a fanged monster running behind. It would be strong enough for the purpose he was conceiving.

Leaving his still-oblivious prisoner lying on the ground, Melkor walked over to the tree. Savagely he yanked a trailing length of the vine free from where it clung, ripping both it and the tree's bark as he tore it away. He smiled grimly, almost imagining that he could hear an echoing cry of pain from Yavanna's voice. Turning back towards his captive, he ripped the vine in two.

_If both his hands and his feet are trapped,_ Melkor thought, _he will be helpless either to fight or to flee._ He knelt down again, turned the Elf onto his face in the dirt, and pulled back his arms. Twisting the rope tightly around the captive's wrists, he tied it tightly to hold it in place. Then he repeated the same binding at the young Elf's ankles.

Satisfied that this would hold his prisoner against any waking struggles, Melkor lifted the Elf into his arms and carried him out from under the eaves of the forest, to the nearby gates of Utumno.

* * *

Melkor had never yet seen anything like the terror in his young prisoner's eyes as he awoke, his hands and feet tightly bound, lying on the floor of Utumno's throne room in front of Melkor's feet.

"What horror is this?" the Elf asked, his voice filled with ultimate loathing and deep fear. "We are the Quendi. We are the only ones who speak. What phantom of darkness are you?" He dared to look up into Melkor's eyes, though his soul itself almost seemed to shrivel at the horror of their burning gaze.

Melkor laughed aloud, his voice booming and echoing around the vast arched cavern. "I am no phantom!" he assured his helpless prisoner. "I am Melkor, Lord of this world - and I am your master. Now," he commanded, in a tone of unquestionable authority, "what is your name?"

"I am Aldor," the Elf said, seemingly too frightened to refuse to answer. With a flash of deep pride in his eyes, he straightened his back as much as he could in his bonds, lifted his head, and said, "You can never be my master! Whatever you are, whatever unspeakable spirit of evil, the Quendi are free! We do not serve anyone, and never have. Love is our only guide."

Melkor's heart filled with sudden fury at the open defiance of this small, fragile being. Then, remembering just how fragile the young one was, he smiled as a dark, savage joy rose up inside his soul.

"I will teach you a new guide," he said in vast satisfaction, anticipating a battle waged and won. "I will teach you pain."

* * *

Guided by the screams and the tearful pleading of Aldor and a handful of other Firstborn captives, Melkor patiently taught himself and his servants the art of intentionally tormenting the helpless. Culnaur especially proved to be an apt pupil, frequently suggesting simple yet ingenious means of creating agony that had not occured to Melkor himself. The Valaraukar too had their contributions to make; and their first invention, the whip, became one of the oldest and cruelest instruments of torment that the world of Arda would ever know.

By the time the last of those few among the prisoners who never yielded their wills had died, the halls of Utumno and Angband were filled with many unthinkable weapons of agony. And of Melkor's orignal ten youthful Quendi prisoners, there now survived in his possession six broken, despairing slaves.

* * *

_It is time for the next stage,_ Melkor thought. _I must ensure that my domination over their spirits is complete._ He smiled to himself. _And at the same time, I will gain many more new slaves._

Summoning his Valaraukar, he sent them out in the direction of the Quendi's lands with orders to capture and bring back several hundred if they could. Melkor himself stayed behind in Utumno to plan the details of what he would do when the new captives arrived in his fortress.

* * *

"No, my lord!" Aldor stared desperately at Melkor, trying to deny the command he had just been given. _"Please!"_ He cast a quick, agonized glance at the second elven prisoner - a very young one, barely grown to adulthood, and captured only hours earlier - who was lying face down on the floor nearby, all four of his limbs stretched out to their fullest extent and fastened to the stone with short chains.

Melkor did not reply to Aldor's terrified appeal. He did not need to. Again he held out the whip towards his eldest slave, allowing the unyielding malice in his burning eyes to make it clear that his will in this could not be resisted.

His deeply-scarred face twisted with horror, Aldor took the whip from Melkor's hand. Sobbing, he raised it above his head and began to lash the chained form of his terrified, pleading kinsman. Aldor flinched deeply at each blow, as if the blood was being drawn from his own back.

Reveling in the chained young Elf's screams of agony and terror, Melkor was nevertheless far more pleased by this proof of his control over Aldor. He allowed the savage whipping to continue for an hour or more, until the young prisoner fell into a black swoon, his weary spirit unable to accept more pain before he had rested. Then Melkor finally held up his hand.

"Stop," he said. "That is all."

Gasping for breath between his tears, Aldor fell to his knees, the whip still clutched in his trembling right hand. "Please, my lord," he begged, infinite pain in his ruined, once-noble face. "Never again!"

"On the contrary," Melkor told him. "You will kill or torment any I command you to, because this is what you are now. You are my slave, and you care more for yourself than you do for them."

Knowing it was true, Aldor bowed his still-beautiful head and wept. His tears fell on the cold stone floor that was as unmoved as Melkor's heart.

* * *

Years later, Melkor found himself dissatisfied in spite of the many Firstborn who were now his slaves.

_I own their spirits, true,_ he thought, _but not completely. They are still as Ilúvatar made them, and only serve me because of fear. I want to make them into the slaves that I choose for myself!_

Frowning, Melkor pondered just what such slaves would be like. _They must be stronger. The slender Firstborn do not make useful workers, and they will have no advantage over their kin if I send them into battle. And their appearance must be changed, to reflect the terror of my reign. Above all, they must be taught cruelty within their own hearts. Until then my dominion over their spirits is uncertain._ Melkor knew well how to hurt and terrify his captives, but that was not enough if he wished to design a new race whose absolute lord he would be.

_If my purpose was only for them to suffer, then suffer they would,_ Melkor thought, musing on the problem. _But to change them..._ He was already beginning to imagine ways in which he might accomplish it, but this task would be vast beyond most endeavors he had ever undertaken. Melkor decided that he would seek out the cleverness of his most loyal servant, rather than relying entirely on the designs of his own mind.

* * *

"You are asking for my advice?" Culnaur asked in flattered surprise. This was perhaps the greatest honor his lord had ever shown him: to work alongside the mighty Vala in the designing of a new race of slaves, the changing of Ilúvatar's work.

"I am," Melkor said. "I need the ingenuity that you once used in Aulë's service."

"You shall have no less," Culnaur promised.

He listened intently as Melkor described his own ideas on how to go about permanently changing the Quendi's bodies and hearts.

"Above all," Melkor finished, "I need a way to make certain that the changes we make in the slaves will affect their children as well. They must remain as I will them to be through all their generations. I am not content simply to change them one by one."

Carefully considering all that he had heard, Culnaur stood for long moments in silence after Melkor finished speaking.

"There is one thing," he said finally. "Have you considered the use of poisons? The living things of Yavanna's creation, under your power, have been bringing forth many potent venoms - and I have seen animals and plants twisted or killed by the fumes of your volcanic eruptions as well."

"Yes!" Melkor said, his flaming eyes brightening with sudden appreciation. "That may be the missing piece I wanted. I myself have seen the whelps of wild animals that were born in twisted forms after some poison affected the mother..."

Culnaur felt a surge of fierce pride as Melkor praised his thought. "I will gather poisons myself from the forest and the flaming lava vents," he told his liege-lord. "You now own so many slaves and captives that it will not matter if some die as we are discovering how the different poisons affect them."

"That is true," Melkor said. Culnaur could tell that he was now entirely absorbed in the fascination of the project that lay ahead of them - a fascination that Culnaur shared.

"We will begin with the females," Melkor went on, "those that have recently been captured and not yet broken to my will. There is no sense in wasting the time and effort that has gone into creating an already obedient slave. They will be both poisoned and tormented - the combination should certainly be enough to change them! And any that do not quickly die," he said coldly, as if he were discussing the destruction of lifeless stone, "will be forced to mate with some of the already-enslaved males. Once we see the effects on their offspring, we can perfect the methods we will use after that."

Culnaur nodded in satisfaction. "I will return soon!" he said. Bowing quickly, but with the same deep respect that he always felt for the Vala who was his Lord, he turned and hurried out of the throne room, already listing in his mind the types of venom that he would go and collect for Melkor's task.

* * *

Author's Note: I have derived Aldor's name from the Quenya word 'alda,' which means 'tree' according to the index of the Silmarillion.

A very big thank you goes to my sister Razzle for Culnaur's idea about the poisons. Like Melkor, I (only as a writer, thank God!) was missing that piece of the puzzle when I asked myself the terrifying question of how I would go about it if I wanted to change Elves into Orcs. So I asked Razzle for advice, and she delivered wonderfully. Just like Culnaur - only she isn't my servant, and neither of us is evil! O_o'

I have also, like Melkor, seen firsthand the effects of a poisoned mother on young animals. My family once owned a cat who was born with her back legs only about a quarter the length they should have been, and twisted into corkscrews. She was, fortunately, not in pain from this, but had no use of her hind legs at all and had to walk on her two front paws like an acrobat. The reason? The cat's mother, while pregant, had been fed crack cocaine by her abusive owners as a joke. That mother cat and all of the other kittens in her litter died, leaving only the lovely girl we were privileged to adopt. It is with great respect that I have included this reference to her story in my fanfic.


	8. Chapter 8: The Dark Horseman

Author's Note: ATTENTION! There's a good chance you may have missed reading Chapter 6 of this fanfic. At my last update, I posted Chapters 6 and 7 in a row, the same evening. Since then I've had about twice as many story hits for Chapter 7 as for Chapter 6. I'm afraid a lot of people may not have realized I posted two chapters at once. :(

If you never read "Chapter 6: Building a Realm", then you've totally missed out on seeing Ossë and Uinen cuteness, Melkor as a giant spider, the origin of Culnaur's infamous fortress of Angband, and lots more! Please go back and read Chapter 6 now if you haven't already. You'll make me a very happy writer. I promise, that chapter is as good as all my others, and I wrote it (like all my fanfiction) so that YOU would get to read it! :)

From now on, I'll only update one chapter at a time and wait a few days between updates even if I have more than one chapter ready at once. That should make things less confusing!

* * *

Chapter 8: The Dark Horseman

Of the many kinds of torment that Melkor had devised for his Firstborn prisoners, he discovered that a combination of tortures was often the most effective in changing their bodies and their hearts. But it was the power of his fierce _will_ that they should change, more than anything else, that seemed to truly make the difference.

The Quendi's smooth, pale skin gradually turned rough and gray. Their bones, repeatedly broken and healed again, grew thicker and stronger than before. Countless wounds that Melkor and his servants inflicted on them, while the terrified prisoners were prevented by thick iron chains from protecting themselves, left their faces and their bodies twisted and scarred. Only their eyes - gray, or blue, or flashing black, and incredibly beautiful - remained exactly the same, except for the new expressions that they held as their owners' hearts fell into despair and slavery.

Several of Culnaur's poisons turned out to be especially successful. Most of the young females who were first poisoned had indeed died soon afterwards, but a handful of them had lived. Of the children that these surviving Quendi women were forced to bear, almost all showed signs of the same changes that had been inflicted on the bodies of their mothers.

* * *

The free Quendi, however, posed another problem. Yavanna was not the only one of the enemy Valar who repeatedly came as an unwelcome visitor to Melkor's kingdom of Middle-earth. In the years since Melkor had driven the Valar away across the ocean, Oromë had come frequently to ride through the woods and hunt down Melkor's vicious, predatory animals. The dark lord of Utumno knew that it was just a matter of time before Oromë would meet the Quendi.

_And then the Valar will quickly become their friends, and the Elves will have powerful help in their efforts to evade my rule!_ Melkor shook his head. _I cannot allow that! I must ensure that I will be able to gain total domination over all their race._

Brooding in the dim, flickering light of his throne room, Melkor suddenly smiled. _Of course! Soon the Quendi will be too terrified to speak to Oromë when they do meet him._

* * *

"I saw him," Culnaur whispered in a tone of hushed fear. His shining gray eyes looked out of his slim white face, curtained with silver hair. In the form of an Elf, the powerful Maia was exerting his growing powers of deception to carry out a special mission that he had been assigned by Melkor.

The real Elf in front of Culnaur stared at him breathlessly. "Who?" he whispered back, his eyes showing absolute trust of Culnaur's apparently friendly warning.

Culnaur paused dramatically, glancing over his shoulder as if to make sure that some horror was not about to jump out at him. He looked back at the Elf, his eyes wide. "The Horseman," he finally said. "A dark rider, with a terrifying light in his eyes..." He trailed off as if lost in a frightening memory, then went on, "I was lucky to escape. His horse was swifter than anything I have ever imagined: swifter than deer, swifter I almost thought than the wind!"

The other Elf put a hand on Culnaur's, as if to comfort him. The lieutenant of Melkor found himself laughing inside at that idea.

"You are safe now," the Quendi man said, to Culnaur's continued incredulous amusement. "Tell me, friend; what happened? How did you escape?"

"I barely did," Culnaur said, filling his voice with the same tone of horror and near-helpless fright that he had heard from so many of Melkor's slaves at the moments of their capture. "And no, I am not safe, brother... and neither are you. For the Dark Horseman still rides in the forests, and if he catches you..." Culnaur shook his head, letting his face signal both hopelessness and ominous mystery.

The Elf he was speaking to was now staring at him in open terror. _It would be so easy,_ Culnaur thought, _to capture this youth and bring him back to Utumno or my own Angband. He would not be able to stand against the agony we would cause him. He would soon find himself enslaved, body and soul, like the others. But no - Melkor has a different use for this one._

Culnaur's innocent companion put his hand on the Maia's shoulder and squeezed. "Stay with us," he said, his voice suddenly bold in spite of his fear. "You will be safer with the people of my home than as a traveler alone."

"No," Culnaur said, allowing his voice to rise gradually as if his control over panic was slipping. "I dare not stay! This is too near to where I saw the Horseman. No one here is safe!" Pulling away from the Firstborn's compassionate hand on his shoulder, Culnaur ran headlong into the forest. He moved as silently as any true Elf, and as his feet carried him far from the sight of the bewildered elven youth he had deceived, he had to sternly command himself to restrain his laughter.

* * *

Pleased with Culnaur's reports of the lies he had been spreading among the Elves, Melkor decided to give substance to the falsehood. At his command, a few of his Maiar servants travelled to the open plainsland of Lothlann that lay to the south and east of Utumno fortress. They soon brought back dozens of the wild horses who roamed there.

Melkor turned the animals over to some of the cruelest or most obedient of his Quendi slaves. Directing the captive Elves to break the spirits of the proud, wild horses, Melkor settled himself to watch in great amusement.

For a time, the screams and rebellious neighing of horses rang alongside the cries of the tortured Quendi in Utumno's deep halls. Around half of the animals died under the inexperienced hands of their trainers and tormentors, but Melkor was not concerned. Even if they had all died, he would only have needed to capture more. It would be well worth it just for this chance to more deeply ingrain cruelty into the hearts of his elven slaves.

Those horses who survived were soon subdued and stood in despair, no longer fighting the ropes and chains around their necks. Melkor walked among them, pleased at everything he saw, and searching for the one animal that he would choose for himself.

Finally he stopped beside the horse that had been broken by the still-rebellious but always obedient Aldor. The animal was spectacular, pure black and very strong. It stood several inches taller than most of the others. Despite the fear and hopelessness filling the eyes that stared out of its lowered head, this animal still showed an expression of vitality and energy.

It was also not badly wounded, unlike several others. Instead, Melkor saw a few small, deep whip cuts precisely placed on several of the most sensitive areas of the horse's body.

Smiling, Melkor looked into the angry, helpless eyes of his slave Aldor. "I will take this animal for myself," he said. "You have done well." As he led the horse away, Aldor looked at him silently. The Elf's eyes now held a mixture of self-loathing and a wary sense of relief. Clearly, the slave hoped that he would be rewarded at least with a temporary lack of pain for his efforts in training the animal.

* * *

The nameless horse's hooves thundered against the forest floor between the widely spaced trees. Melkor laughed aloud as he rode, seeing the panicked forms of the Quendi scattering in the distance to both sides.

At other times, he knew, he would send Culnaur and some of his other servants out on the other horses, always one at a time and in widely scattered places, to make sure that the Quendi were never free of the fear of a mounted hunter for long. _Oromë, when he comes, will be such a phantom of terror to them that they will never dare to approach him!_

Melkor pulled hard at the two long leather reins that led to the sharp, narrow metal bar in his horse's mouth. The animal threw its head back away from the pressure and reared up, screaming almost like one of the Elves as it tried to relieve the pain in its sensitive mouth. There was little it could do; the savage device was held in place by a system of tough leather strips that was buckled closely around the animal's head and could be removed only by a creature with hands. Melkor laughed again in delight at the helpless animal's pain, and pulled the reins sharply to the left, effortlessly shifting his own position to keep himself on top of the horse's back.

The dark lord's steed wheeled left, its two front hooves still in the air, and then landed hard on all fours. Neighing again, small drops of blood spraying from its mouth, the animal ran forward as Melkor kicked it hard in the sides.

Melkor laughed again, over the sound of the now-distant Quendi's cries of fear. _This 'bit and bridle' that Culnaur invented for us,_ he thought, _is incredibly useful._

* * *

The fact of the transformations themselves seemed to cause the noble, doomed Quendi captives almost more agony than the physical tortures by which those transformations were achieved.

Melkor sat on his throne and listened with the hearing of a Vala to the sounds that rose from the breeding pits far below. The voices of his multitude of slaves rose up in a clamor of anguish; sobbing, cries of horror, the frantic, despairing words of wild protests and lamentations that might have been prayers if the slowly changing Quendi had imagined that there might be anyone they could ask for aid.

More and more, these plaintive, grieving cries were overwhelmed by other sounds. There were shouts of hatred, threats of violence from one prisoner to another that neither Melkor nor any of his servants had specifically commanded, and cruel, ringing laughter. It reminded Melkor of the effect that his rebellion had had on the Great Music, when his song had overcome so much of the music of Ilúvatar's faithful. He smiled to himself, listening to the mingled screams and curses, tears and snarls.

_The creation of my slaves is going well._

Still, many of the individual Quendi continued for months or years to resist Melkor's power; and these he subjected to cruel and repeated torment.

* * *

"No, let me die!" the Elf said desperately. "Do not heal these wounds! I fear that if I am tormented again, I will allow him to rule me. My friend, do not help me!" He was obviously delirious, and had no idea who he was talking to. "Please, just let me die!"

Melkor made a note of that Elf's identity, planning to come back several hours later and secure his allegiance with the pain that he so obviously feared. Pressing the helpless, bleeding Quendi man back down onto the stone bed, Melkor mercilessly healed his wounds, soothing his pain away with a gentle but implacable touch. As the Elf turned his head aside, no longer bleeding but obviously heartbroken, and started sobbing quietly in despair against the harsh gray stone, Melkor moved on to ensure the survival of his next young victim.

This one was a female; her name was Alakë, he remembered. Refusing to lie down, she sat with her arms wrapped around her raised knees in spite of the broken ribcage that Melkor knew she had received less than an hour before. Her eyes burned as she turned her head to stare at him.

"I know who you are," she spat. "You are the Dark Horseman! I will not serve you, no matter what you do to me!"

Melkor smiled as he recognized her description of the form he and his servants had often taken in order to make the Firstborn fear Oromë the Huntsman if they should ever see him. _Ironic - you will not serve me because I am Oromë, and therefore evil!_ Aloud he said, "Oh, but you will, dear maiden. Pain will leave you no choice, sooner or later." She drew back, revulsion and hatred in her eyes, but he grabbed her effortlessly around the waist and arms and sent healing power flooding through her as she kicked and struggled, screaming piercingly in fury and horror.

"Your spirit is exactly the kind I want in my servants," he told her, as he let go of her perfectly healed body and watched her draw herself to the far side of the rough bed where she glared at him in pure hatred. "I can use and change that fury into a spirit of pure evil! And it will not be only you who serves me," he went on, as her face and eyes began to flare with mounting terror alongside the rage. "In chains you will conceive many children of your fellow slaves, and in chains you will bear them. And you will watch them taken from you and raised as my vicious killers, without knowledge of what they might have been."

Her shock and horror were obviously now too great to allow her to speak at all. Laughing under his breath at the little Firstborn maiden and the terror into which he had been able to twist her defiance, Melkor once again walked along on his mission of healing.

* * *

"You..." the Elf whispered, stricken with horror. "It was _you_ who healed me before!" It was the same prisoner who had begged earlier not to be healed, perhaps thinking Melkor to be one of his fellow Quendi at the time.

"Of course," Melkor said mildly. "I am always compassionate to my servants."

The Elf defiantly shook his head, though he was obviously on the edge of panic. "I am not your servant!" he said desperately.

As Melkor reached out a menacing hand towards him, the slender Firstborn cowered back in terror, his eyes wide and wild with fright. His long, straight silver hair hung slightly tangled around his set, quivering shoulders.

Shrinking back did him no good. Melkor grabbed him roughly by the upper arm and quickly bound his slim, graceful hands together behind his back. Hauling him to a small alcove nearby, the lord of Utumno made certain to give his prisoner a good, but brief, look at the tall metal framework that stood there.

The device was set with several iron chains and clamps to hold a victim in place. Panicking, the Elf struggled frantically against Melkor's grip, but the strength of a Vala was infinitely greater than his own.

As easily as if the Quendi man had not been resisting at all, Melkor fastened him into the steel framework. His hands still tied behind him, the Elf now stood with unbreakable metal cuffs clamped around his arms, legs, and ankles. Terror blazed outward from his eyes, but somehow, behind it, there was still just a hint of an impossible strength.

_That will soon be gone,_ Melkor thought confidently. _Or rather, turned to my own purposes._ In plain view of his helpless Quendi prisoner, Melkor slowly began to move a lever attached to the side of the metal device.

The ingeniously crafted steel swiveled and twisted against itself, cruelly straining and wrenching at the slender form of the Elf who was imprisoned within it. At first he clenched his jaw so hard that his entire face trembled, but soon he cried out in strangled agony as Melkor continued to increase his pain.

Melkor watched, calmly interested, as the prisoner clearly summoned his last reserves of determination.

"I am... Quendi!" the Elf gasped, obviously struggling both to speak through his pain and to keep his own will free. "Quendi must not... serve... evil!" Then he drew a sudden, deep breath and screamed desperately, fighting uselessly to pull away from the steel frame that was slowly twisting his body.

Melkor deliberately continued the Elf's torment, watching his face intently. He knew the exact instant when his prisoner's resolve snapped; the sudden despair and intensified desperation in his eyes left no doubt.

The Elf was screaming constantly now, in too much agony to pause long enough even to speak a single word. Intentionally, Melkor kept him in that much pain for a minute or two longer, before he released the tension of the iron device somewhat.

Trembling from head to foot, the Elf gasped in several ragged, shuddering breaths between his screams and finally managed to speak. "Stop..." he said in pure desperation. "Stop! Please stop! Enough..." Half-screaming, half-sobbing as he failed for a moment to speak further, he looked pleadingly at Melkor, his face horrified but completely defeated. The words that he said next seemed to break his very soul as they came from his mouth. "I will do as you say."

Smiling, Melkor released the lever of his torture device entirely. The new slave, his pain no longer being renewed, sagged against the clamps that held him in place, but Melkor began to undo them at once, also removing the now unnecessary ropes from his captive's wrists. A moment later the slave fell to the floor and huddled there in despair.

"Slave," Melkor said, testing his authority over this heart with a simple command. "Get up!"

The slave flashed him a look of sheer terror. Groaning, he pushed himself to his feet in evident pain. "My lord..." he said, hatred and disgust for himself flashing across his gray eyes, but much fainter than the abject fear they held. "What are your commands?"

Melkor placed a comforting hand on his shoulder. "Nothing, for now," he said. "You are weary. Rest and grow strong." With a thought, he once again healed the painful damage to the Firstborn's body.

The agony in the soft eyes faded, to be replaced with confusion. "I... yes, my lord." The slave bowed before him, turned, and hurried away in some direction. Melkor did not care where he went; the entire fortress of Utumno was a prison, and even if this newly enslaved Elf had had any such thought, there was no escaping.

* * *

For many generations of his Quendi prisoners, Melkor continued to change them into the slaves he was designing. Many of them died before succumbing to Melkor's control, but the females among these rebellious ones frequently had offspring whose spirits he sooner or later succeeded in twisting to his will.

Some of the earliest prisoners, such as the maiden Alakë with the defiant, warlike spirit, survived long before finally surrendering their own hearts. She and others like her, mated against their will with males who had already been reduced to snarling brutes, bore strong, fiery children year after year as Melkor had promised. These whelps, trained from infancy to hatred and cruelty, made some of the very best of Melkor's new slaves.

The Orcs, as he eventually named them, remained for many hundreds of years as a shifting mix of Quendi and monster, beauty and evil jarringly mixed in their race. Slowly, though, the beauty and goodness that Ilúvatar had originally given them were submerged, replaced by the twisted darkness that Melkor, Lord of Utumno, now willed them to possess.

* * *

Author's Note: Alakë's name comes from 'alak-' meaning 'rushing,' which is listed under the entry for 'alqua' ('swan') in the Silmarillion's name-components index.


	9. Chapter 9: Hallowed Iron

Author's Note: Once again, a sudden update after long weeks of delay! Expect to see Chapter 10 in a few days, though; it's already finished! Thank you to all of my readers and especially my wonderful reviewers: knowing that I have you all to tell this story _to_ is a lot of what keeps me inspired to write it. :)

Not long ago, I got a bit of an interesting surprise while looking idly through the indexes at the end of The Return of the King. What was my amazement to see, out of nowhere, that the first name in the "Persons, Beasts, and Monsters" index was Aldor - the same name as one of my original Quendi characters in this fanfic!I looked up the one reference to the name in LOTR's text, and it led me to the funeral of King Théoden. This canon Aldor, it seems, was the third Lord of Rohan.

Perhaps the fact that I'd seen the name in passing while reading LOTR is part of what led me to think of it when naming my fanfic character. Perhaps it was only a coincidence. Who knows? Either way, Aldor of the Quendi and the Orcs, and King Aldor of Rohan, certainly do share the same name.

So, I've decided that in my own version of Arda's history, Aldor of the ancient Quendi must have been remembered by some of his friends, and his name passed down through time until - like so many names of Elves from the Silmarillion - it was given to a mortal Man to bear as his own. Given the tragedy of _my_ Aldor's story, that idea is one that I definitely treasure.

* * *

Chapter 9: Hallowed Iron

There was an escape from the breeding pits of the Orcs.

Melkor directed his servants to let the half-changed slave run for now, because it amused him. He expected him to try to reach an exit, but to Melkor's intense interest, the prisoner ran unerringly for Melkor's own throne room. Relying on some tightly-held memory from the time of his capture, he fled through the dark halls and past the hidden guards until he burst through the immense, arched doorway. Seeing Melkor seated in dark majesty on his throne, he fell to his knees and stared up with a face of awestruck terror.

"Please..." the twisted Elf begged, desperation in his voice. "My sister..."

"Your sister is the mother of Orcs now," Melkor said mercilessly. "Her whelps have already killed for me." He was the more darkly pleased because he knew he spoke no less than the truth. He recognized this Elf as the older of a pair of Quendi that he himself had captured a few decades ago, in a meadow under the stars that Varda had set to defy his reign. The brother and sister had been laughing when Melkor found them; then their laughter had changed to screams of terror.

Now, hearing Melkor's words, the helpless Elf collapsed sobbing to the floor. Melkor signaled to one of his demons, who was standing against a wall of the throne room to await his command.

"Burn the pity from him," Melkor ordered, as the demon swooped to the center of the chamber. "Teach him to fear for no one but himself."

The Valarauko disdainfully picked up the broken Elf by the back of his shirt.

"As you will, Master," the Demon of Might rumbled. Effortlessly carrying his still-sobbing burden, he left the throne room to head for his dark lair in the caves beneath Utumno.

Melkor smiled, curling his fingers around the end of his throne's massive arm. He had no doubt that his will would be accomplished in this.

* * *

"I do not like this task," Aulë said sadly, holding up the length of dully gleaming, linked gray steel that he was in the process of forging. "This is the darkest thing that I have ever wrought."

"That may be," Manwë replied, equally grieved. "But my heart tells me that it is not as dark as the things that our brother Melkor has been doing."

* * *

_So, Oromë has found them._ There could be no other meaning behind the song that the small group of free Quendi were now singing, their voices ringing joyfully as they stood in total unawareness of Melkor's presence. In the form of a huge coiling serpent, he watched with glittering eyes from where his body lay curled and twisted among the high branches of one of Yavanna's trees.

_Her creations are surprisingly useful,_ he reflected, then dismissed the thought as he continued to listen to the Elves' music. They sang of surprise and wonder as well as joy, telling a story of how the Horseman had come one day and shown them that he was no monster, but a mighty and noble being who had offered them friendship.

Melkor seethed, hissing quietly in his throat at their words. _These fool, trusting Quendi! Their own innocence has undone my plans to deceive them._ He slitted his yellow eyes, gazing down at the group of Firstborn who were as achingly beautiful and as infuriatingly free as the first Elves he had seen, centuries ago. _I should have foreseen it. If they were willing to accept Culnaur as a friend, why not Oromë?_

"No matter," he whispered with the near-silent voice of the deadly snake he was. "I am still more powerful than all of the other Valar combined." Moving noiselessly through the thick green leaves, Melkor looped his body across the intertwining branches to another nearby tree, then slid gradually to the ground and slithered back towards Utumno. There were too many Quendi here to be worth the effort of capturing all at once, and he already had many thousands of Orc-slaves in his fortress to whom he could turn his attention.

* * *

_My sister! I must... find her!_

Fire wrapped his body again. The hopelessly valiant Firstborn prisoner twisted uselessly in the grip of the Valarauko whose flames were burning him. He wore no bonds of any kind; the comparative weakness of his body was all the captivity he needed in the hands of the mighty, nameless demon.

His body seemed to cry out silently in the desperate agony he felt, but only a hoarse, choked scream came from his mouth. His throat was far too parched and dry to produce any louder sound.

_Where are you...?_ Halfway through the thought, he forgot who he was desperately trying to search for. The unimaginable pain of his torment rose up like a curtain of fire in his mind, blotting out everything else.

_No! Help me!_ It was not a thought in words, but a desperate feeling of _need_ for something to stop the pain. His need went unanswered, and the agony continued. Far away, he seemed to hear a deep, rumbling laughter; but he did not understand the sound, nor know that it came from the Demon of Might who was still holding him and taking delight in the agony of his small, helpless prisoner.

If the young Elf had remembered a sister, he might still somehow have managed to fight for her. He might have agreed, even now, to further torment for himself in order to keep her safe.

But he could not remember her. He remembered nothing except the pain. And he knew, though he could not put it into words, that he had to do anything in the world that he could to stop it.

* * *

Melkor looked up as one of his demon servants entered the throne room. He immediately recognized the Quendi prisoner who lay with his body locked into a tightly curled ball in the demon's hands, though there was very little about him that looked the same as when he had desperately run to Melkor almost two weeks earlier to plead for his sister.

Moved by a sudden, deep impulse that he could not name - _Mere interest, perhaps?_ he wondered - Melkor stood up from his throne and quickly walked to meet the Valarauko.

The prisoner was shuddering in brief, intermittent fits, clearly terrified and just as clearly having very little idea of anything that was happening around him. Small, miserable cries of deep agony came from somewhere behind the burned arms that were pressed tightly against his face below the remains of his charred hair.

Melkor took the prisoner from his demon's hands and carefully cradled him in his own arms. At the sudden movement against his viciously burned skin, the Elf choked out a slightly louder cry of even more terrible pain.

As he looked down at the young slave who was huddled so tightly and helplessly in his arms, the flames in Melkor's eyes faded a little and his dark face grew slightly softer. _Such burns..._ he thought, his heart and the depths of his soul stirring faintly with an unfamiliar emotion.

Then he smiled, all momentary feelings of compassion vanished. _As it should be,_ he thought in satisfaction. _This slave has defied me._

He looked up at his Valarauko. "Have you carried out my command?" he asked, deliberately tightening his grip on the prisoner. An almost-silent sob of utter agony tore from the Elf's scorched throat.

"Yes, I have," the Demon of Might answered. "He has been begging me for mercy for himself for several days now. I have heard no mention of his sister since the third day he was in my cavern."

"Good," Melkor said. Calling on the power that came so easily to him now, he began to heal the terrible burns that covered the slave's body.

It was a complicated task; the young prisoner's entire body was deeply damaged almost to the point of death. Still, it was no real challenge. A moment later, the burns were gone. The Elf's burned hair and the blackened rags of his clothing were the only remaining visible signs of the torment he had undergone.

Melkor set the terrorized Elf down on the floor. Instantly, the prisoner cast himself abjectly face-down in front of Melkor's feet.

The lord of Utumno smiled cruelly down at him. "Is there something that you wished to ask me for?"

"Please!" the captive gasped in panicked fear, his voice coming harshly from his scarred throat but sounding much stronger now. "Please, my lord! No more pain!"

Melkor laughed to himself. "Is there nothing else?" he inquired. "Do you not still wish to beg mercy for your sister?"

"No, no!" the Elf screamed wildly, shaking his head in confusion. "I do not know what you mean! Please, the burning... no more!"

"Very well," Melkor said, feeling extremely pleased. "Because you ask me so desperately, perhaps I will grant your request."

He turned his attention to the Valarauko. "Take him and throw him into the barracks," he directed. "Tomorrow he will begin his training as one of my soldiers."

The demon's eyes flared cruelly. Bending down, he scooped up the Elf in one powerful hand. Then he started to carry him away.

"No!" the prisoner shrieked. He obviously believed that he was being returned to the fiery torment that he had just left. One hand reached back towards Melkor, clutching at the air in a desperate grasping gesture as he stared back with a beseeching face and round, wildly terrified eyes. "Have mercy! _Please,_ lord...!" His shrieks came from gradually farther away as the Valarauko carried him out of the throne room.

_Do not reassure him as to your destination,_ Melkor instructed his departing servant. _Allow him to remain in terror during the journey to the training barracks. I want him never to forget that I own his soul._

* * *

Looking down from his vast halls above Eä, Eru Ilúvatar bent his head and wept, real tears of grief trickling down his immortal face. He was crying not only for his young burned son who had been put through agony for love of his sister, but also for Melkor, one of Eru's oldest children, whose beautiful heart was lost amid so much evil and hatred.

_My dear, precious Melkor,_ Eru thought, as he saw how close his child had come, in one brief moment, to freeing himself from his evil. The fact that Ilúvatar had always known that this was how things would have to be did not make his pain as a father any less acute. _You have failed again._

* * *

"My lord!" the Maia called Dínfareth said urgently, but as quietly as was always his habit. One of the secret spies who worked alongside Thuringwethil, he had not been seen in Utumno for many years. "The Valar have mounted an attack. They mean to take back these lands for themselves and the Firstborn. I have only just managed to arrive ahead of them!"

"How soon will they arrive?" Melkor asked quickly. He was more annoyed than anything else at the news, but he intended to take this attack seriously. _The others will learn that they cannot move against me without facing the full power of my realm!_ he thought sharply.

"They will be here within hours, I fear," Dínfareth replied. "One of my fellows has gone to warn Lord Culnaur; the Valar intend to attack his stronghold first, then sweep forward to ruin you here after his defeat." He bared his teeth in a wolflike smile. "At least, those are _their_ words," he said disdainfully. "I have no doubt that you will defeat them, of course."

"Of course," Melkor agreed. He thought quickly for several seconds. "Fortify the Gates," he said, speaking so that all in his throne room could hear. "We will send no help to Culnaur. He has already been warned; he will have to stand on his own."

As the people of Utumno moved swiftly and smoothly to obey, showing no more concern at the coming attack than Melkor himself felt, he turned his attention briefly back to the Maia whose name meant 'Silent Hunter'.

"Dínfareth," he said, "thank you. You have done well. Now return to your task as best you can; do not allow yourself to be suspected." There was no need, Melkor knew, to give more specific instructions. Dínfareth would be very capable, as always, of working out the details on his own.

"Now!" Melkor said almost exultantly, as his Maia spy departed from the hall. "We will teach my brother Manwë and his friends what it means to challenge the Lord of Eä."

* * *

At that same moment, Culnaur and his magnificent fortress of Angband were already under siege. His warning had come hours earlier; like Melkor, he had decided to focus his power in the defense of his own home.

_At least for now,_ he thought, a bit grimly. He was certain of his Master's power, but he was also well aware that he himself was only a Maia and might not be able to stand against the entire army of the attacking Ainur. If Angband were to be lost, Culnaur and his people were well-prepared to fall back and join Melkor's forces in the defense of Utumno.

Standing inside one of Angband's few actual windows - which opened only into a narrow hallway backed by the solid stone of the mountain above the fortress itself - Culnaur watched as the hosts of his enemies approached the Iron Gate. As he stared out across the gleaming, impressively arrayed ranks of the Valar and Maiar, he caught sight of a familiar, solid, brown-haired figure.

_Aulë,_ he said in silent challenge, directing his thought outward to the mind of his former master. Far out on the fields in front of Angband, the mighty Smith lifted his head and scanned the face of the cliff until his eyes found Culnaur.

_Go away from here,_ Culnaur told him sternly. _This is my home and my palace. Melkor and I own these lands now. You have no place here._

_Culnaur,_ Aulë replied in a tone of grief with an undercurrent as unforgiving as the strongest of stones. _You were my friend and my little brother! Now see what you have done to yourself. All of these works that you have created; they could have been things of beauty, as you used to make! Instead you and Melkor have built fortresses and prisons. This is not what Eru meant for the world he made!_

Absolutely incensed by Aulë's words, Culnaur swept his left arm out to the side in a grand gesture to indicate the entirety of Angband's fortress. _This __is__ a place of beauty, as well as power!_ he thought back in anger and pride. _If you cannot see it, that only means that you are blind. Now go, or be destroyed._

Aule turned briefly, seeming to speak quietly to Manwë and Ulmo who stood beside him. Then he faced Culnaur once again, his face hard and stern. _It is you and Melkor who have doomed yourselves,_ he said silently. _For the sake of Eru's Firstborn, we will overthrow your tyranny and undo the evil of your reign._

At that, Culnaur laughed aloud; the Valar and their people did not yet know about the Orcs! His laughter rang out over the invading army's heads even as he sent the thoughts of his mind to every one of them, no longer speaking only to Aulë. _When you meet some of those Firstborn,_ he told them in a tone of cruel mystery, _you may face a hard decision as to how you wish to 'undo' our evil._

* * *

Some hours later, the battle for Angband's defense was not going well. Aulë's power had torn apart much of the very stone of Angband and its surrounding mountains, and Culnaur's people were hard pressed to defend the gaps. Ulmo, along with his again-loyal servant Ossë and many others, was summoning the very waves of the ocean itself across the land to crash against the parts of the fortress that still stood undamaged. Water swirled and bubbled around the defenders' feet as it poured into the fortress through the breaks that Manwë's living soldiers could not yet win through.

Despite the power of Culnaur and his servants, it was becoming clear to him that Angband could not stand against these forces for long. In his heart, Culnaur knew that this was no less than he could have expected. Directing a fraction of his servants to remain and continue the battle for as long as they could, he led the rest of his people away through secret exits and swiftly across the lands toward Utumno.

* * *

Angband's walls were not yet out of sight behind them when there was a great rumbling sound and the ground shook fiercely beneath the retreating Maiar's feet. Stricken, Culnaur looked back to see his entire fortress and a large part of the mountain itself crumbling to the ground.

Grieved as he was at the destruction of his spectacular home, Culnaur realized that it was not the most important thing. As he saw the last remnant of Angband's routed defenders fleeing in open retreat towards him, followed by the swiftly advancing army of the Valar, he understood clearly that they must all reach Utumno ahead of that army and make a stand alongside Melkor.

* * *

Moving as swiftly as they ever had, united by fury and an equally intense feeling of shame at their failure to hold Angband, Culnaur's host arrived at the walls of Utumno moments ahead of their wrathful pursuers. Quickly and efficiently, he and the several Valaraukar who were his captains arranged their forces in a defensive formation outside the Gates.

Standing with his eyes closed and his fists clenched tightly at his sides, Culnaur tore apart the earth itself between his own army and the attacking one to create a wide, fiery moat filled with blazing deep-red lava. Summoning the seething fires from deep within the ground, he filled his moat to overflowing until the molten flames leaped and splashed out across the ground.

"You will not stand against us!" Manwë challenged from beyond the fire, his voice a roar of wind.

* * *

Yet for long days, the defenders of Utumno did indeed stand undefeated. Finally, though, they were driven aside long enough for Tulkas and Aulë to blast and wrench apart the massive stone gates, tearing a way through to the inside of Melkor's castle.

After that, defeat seemed swift and almost inevitable. Melkor and Culnaur decided that they must even expend their comparatively small and fragile Orc-soldiers against the Ainur who now poured into Utumno's depths. But it did no good; even as both the Maiar of Melkor's kingdom and the terrified, whip-driven Orcs tried to hold back the attacking forces, others of the Valar sent their power against the very walls and roofs of the underground palace.

The cold gray stone shook, trembled, and burst apart in place after place. The faint but needle-sharp light of the stars streamed into caverns that had never before been open to the sky.

Furious, and deeply shaken by the destruction of these two strongholds that he had seen as absolutely impregnable, Culnaur finally abandoned his attempts to guard what remained of Utumno from the outside. Looking around, he saw that most of his people had already fled or been driven away. He gathered the ones he could still find and ordered them all inside the ruined fortress, to bring the final stand of their battle to the enemies who were already deep within the broken halls.

As they moved into the depths of Utumno, they saw nothing at first except for the destruction - and in the Orcs' cases, death - that had been left behind by the fighting. Many of the once-beautiful caverns they passed through were now littered with the broken bodies of Orcs whose breeding and training had taken dozens or hundreds of years. Culnaur shook his head at the waste. _The Valar have destroyed more of our work than they know._

With a feeling of passing interest, Culnaur recognized the lifeless body of Aldor, the first Elf that Melkor had ever captured, lying dead among the bodies of the other slain Orcs. His features, in death, still seemed to hold an expression of desperately acute shame and regret.

_We never did entirely own that spirit,_ Culnaur reflected, irritated at the memory of Aldor's long years of pleading not to be forced to do evil. _Still, he did choose to follow every command we gave him, even though he would desperately have wished to do otherwise. I suppose that in a way, that was an even greater victory for us._

Dismissing the thought of Melkor's Firstborn slaves from his mind for the time being, Culnaur turned to one of his Valaraukar captains. "Lead our forces into battle wherever you find it," he directed. "I must find Lord Melkor."

* * *

Melkor's heart was pounding rapidly in his chest as he stood at bay in a small, round cavern at the very depths of his iron mines below Utumno. His mind was reeling at the swiftness of his castle's defeat; he had been certain that his enemies could never overcome it! Now he could hear the footsteps of those same enemies rapidly approaching, and he had no place further to flee.

"Melkor!" his brother Manwë cried out, as he swept into the cavern at the head of his victorious besieging army. "We saw the beings who guarded your rooms and hallways; they were not Maiar! What can you have done to them? They cannot have been anything else but the Quendi!"

Behind him, Oromë and Tulkas, along with several of the other Valar and a small cluster of their Maiar servants, moved quickly into the cavern. Melkor's only possible exit was now blocked and filled with a living wall of his enraged enemies.

In spite of his impossible situation, Melkor's heart filled with pride and indignation. "I have done as I pleased with the subjects of my realm! You have no right to speak judgements against me. I am the mightiest of all beings in Arda!"

Manwë made no reply in words, but caught and held Melkor's eyes with his own. His face was at once grieved and resolutely condemning.

Then, one of the Maiar stepped up beside the stern Vala. Melkor, breaking away from his brother's gaze, recognized Olórin who was one of Oromë's hunters. In a few brief seconds of almost whimsical distraction, Melkor reflected that it was very unusual to see Olórin not on horseback.

"Now you will learn the price of your hatred, Melkor!" Olórin shouted in fury. "How dare you do such things to Ilúvatar's world, and to Ilúvatar's Children?"

"Indeed," Ulmo said gravely. His voice was quieter and deeper than Olórin's, but it held a sense of vastly more power. Like the oceans that were his domain, Ulmo's anger seemed to run far deeper than what was visible in his solemn dark-gray eyes.

Melkor had forgotten how frightening it was to face so many of the other Valar at once when they stood against him in wrath. His fear made him even angrier.

"Begone, all of you!" Melkor cried out in fury, though his heart trembled with secret fright.

"We will not 'begone'!" Tulkas retorted in hot indignation. "Stand forth and face me in single combat, O Melkor who thinks himself great! Then we shall see who will triumph!"

For a moment, Melkor's heart seemed to boil inside him. Then his anger turned cold. How dared they challenge him in the heart of his own stronghold?

"I accept," he said coldly.

Tulkas and Melkor stepped towards each other warily, as the other Ainur moved back to leave them the entire space of the cavern's center for their battle. Behind Tulkas, Manwë spoke briefly to Olórin and several of the other Maiar, who bowed quickly before him and then turned to leave the cavern.

"Where have you sent your servants?" Melkor asked his brother mockingly, though he kept most of his attention on the slowly approaching Tulkas.

Manwë's gaze was steady as he answered. "I have sent my herald Eönwë and his companions to find and root out any other evil that may be hidden here."

_Let them try,_ Melkor thought, then found himself trembling against his will as he looked into the steely eyes of Tulkas. This was his greatest enemy, someone he had never faced without running. Now, he had no choice but to do battle.

As the two mighty opponents locked arms in a wrestling grip, Tulkas suddenly burst forth laughing. Enraged at the mockery, Melkor threw his weight forward and twisted to his left, pulling Tulkas briefly off-balance and forcing him to pivot partway around Melkor's body.

Tulkas recovered quickly, grinning now. He caught up with his own movement and continued circling to Melkor's left, drawing Melkor along with him. Melkor wanted to strike him in the face and remove that grin, but he could not release the warrior's arms.

Abruptly, Tulkas changed direction and started circling back to Melkor's right again. Melkor fought to throw his opponent off his footing, but without warning Tulkas let go of Melkor's right arm, wrenching free of the demonic lord's own grip on that side at the same time.

Caught entirely unprepared for such an unusual move, Melkor found himself spinning entirely about until he was facing away from Tulkas with his left arm twisted and held behind his back. Before he could adjust or try to free himself, Tulkas planted his own free hand firmly in the center of Melkor's back and slammed him violently down to the floor with his face against the stone.

Melkor tried to right himself, but Tulkas was already kneeling on top of the small of his back, and he found himself helplessly pinned to the ground. Tulkas grabbed his arms and wrenched them back, as Melkor roared in fury.

In acute disbelief, Melkor felt a chain closing around his wrists, binding his hands behind him. Another length of chain tangled around his feet even as he tried to kick out at his captors.

Never before had his fierce pride been humbled so crushingly. Never had his spirit or his body been confined against his will! _Even when I bowed my head to Ilúvatar after the Great Music,_ he thought, _even then it was my own choice to make that movement!_

Stern hands reached down from behind and placed a cover over Melkor's eyes. Then he felt himself being picked up and actually _carried,_ like a captured animal, on what had to be the broad shoulders of Tulkas. Melkor could hardly breathe for humiliation.

He was also finding it almost impossible to think. His mind just kept repeating a confused denial that he - Melkor - He who arises in Might - could possibly have fallen so far.

* * *

Author's note: This chapter was hard for me to write, because I knew what its ending would be. Oh yes, I still love Melkor dearly in spite of everything! I can't help it. He's Melkor, and I'm a Melkor fangirl. So maybe that's part of why it took me this long to update...

"Hallowed Iron" is a translation - partly mine, partly Tolkien's - of the canon name Angainor for the chain with which Melkor was bound. 'Anga' or 'ang,' frequently used in names in the Silmarillion, simply means 'iron.' The Silmarillion's index of name components lists "Angainor" as one of the words in which it has this meaning. I derived my translation of "Hallowed" for the rest of the name from 'aina,' listed in the index as meaning 'holy.'

My new character Dínfareth is yet another example of my merry attempts to create character names in Elvish! I put it together from 'dîn,' meaning 'silent,' and 'faroth' which according to the Silmarillion's index "is derived from a root meaning 'hunt, pursue'." Then I changed the spelling just a bit because 'faroth' struck me as being plural - well, whatever! I like making up these Elvish names, whether or not I have any idea of what I'm doing. =)


	10. Chapter 10: Doom

Author's Note: This chapter is for almostinsane, A.K.A. Orolin - you'll know why!

Araloth: In your last review (which was fantastic, by the way - thank you! I think it's the very most glowing review I've ever gotten on anything in my life! *hugs*), you said it seems that Melkor has only minions, not friends. That's an "Oops!" on my part! I must not have been expressing my ideas about that as clearly as I hoped; the way I see it, he _does_ have a real friendship with many of his people, especially Culnaur. At least, to the extent that their evil doesn't get in the way! Cruelty and ill-treatment are reserved for people who are NOT loyal to their side! XD! But that's where their mutual respect - and Culnaur's personal loyalty to Melkor - comes from. The 'Friendship' part of the 'Adventure/Friendship' genre I've got this fanfic posted under is definitely intended to mean the frienship between Melkor and Culnaur A.K.A. Sauron. =) Anyway, thanks for giving me the heads-up that I need to quit obscuring my own plotline in subtlety and understatement!

* * *

Chapter 10: Doom

_This is a disaster._ Watching as a shadow on the stone as his friend and master, Melkor, was bound and hauled away, Culnaur knew that it was time to save what he could and escape. Silently and invisibly, he slid along the wall behind the departing Valar, knowing that if he drew their attention they would not fail to perceive him even without a physical form.

They did not notice. Culnaur slipped away into the deepest shadows and left through a narrow hallway. _Now,_ he thought, knowing there was still very little time before they would completely overrun the fortress. _The Orcs!_

None of the unliving items in Utumno were of importance; Culnaur held all the secrets of their making in his mind, at least for the most part. The Orcs, though, were another matter. The work that he and Melkor had put into their creation must _not_ be wasted!

Traveling upwards and eastwards from the deep mine where Melkor had been captured, Culnaur arrived within moments at the Orcs' breeding pits and training barracks. The barracks were mostly deserted, of course, but some of the finest Orc-warriors still waited there in readiness for a final wave of reinforcements that Melkor had never had time to summon.

Resuming his physical form, Culnaur entered the barracks and chose several dozen of the very best slaves who were there. Quietly explaining his orders to them, he led them out into the adjoining cavern.

Followed by his silently running slaves, Culnaur hurried into the separate, locked chamber that was reserved for the females who were currently carrying offspring.

One of them, wearing a ragged, gray gown over her enormously swollen belly, was standing with her hands chained to the tops of two posts, screaming in unheeded pain as she struggled to give birth. It was a usual precaution, to make sure that the captive, unwilling mothers would not harm or kill their own infants after birth. In normal circumstances, a birth-attendant slave would have been summoned when the mother was closer to actual delivery, to ensure that the child was breathing well and to carry it to the infants' training area. Then the mother would be thrown back into the main breeding pits, in chains if necessary, where she would sooner or later conceive another whelp.

Now, the agonized mother struggled against her chains, crying out in pain as her belly muscles rippled. Culnaur left her there. She would probably lose the whelp in any case if she were moved in haste now, and her screams would give away the secrecy of their escape. _Let the Valar have her!_

A short distance past the laboring mother, the rest of the pregnant females had crowded themselves fearfully into the far end of the chamber. The arrival of the armed Orc-warriors, not to mention Culnaur himself, first lieutenant of Melkor, could mean nothing but pain to them.

Culnaur watched, pleased by the efficiency of his well-trained soldiers, as they descended in pairs on the terrified, scattering females. Each pair of Orc-men quickly overpowered one of the round-bellied women, throwing them to the ground and firmly binding their hands and feet with leather cords.

Some of the females put up quite a spectacular fight, brief though it was. One of the oldest - a violently rebellious one called Alakë, who had been bearing Orc-whelps for several centuries now, proving surprisingly resilient to the poisons that sooner or later tended to kill the breeding females - actually knocked one of her attackers to the floor and delivered a vicious blow to the other's gut, doubling him over, before they finally subdued her and bound her. As the cords tightened around her wrists and ankles, she began to shriek wordlessly in fury.

Culnaur stepped towards Alakë and her captors, frowning. He did not want to lose her: she was consistently the mother of very excellent slaves. But she was now screaming even more loudly than the one he had left chained to the birthing posts.

He considered threatening her with torment if she would not be silent, but her actions had always been unpredictable. He could not take the risk that she might agree, then begin screaming again at some disastrous moment in spite of the threat.

Culnaur's eyes of yellow fire stared into Alakë's blazing deep-gray ones, as she stood wrenching and twisting her body in an effort to pull away from the Orc-soldiers who held her up between them. Coldly, he struck her a sharp blow across the side of her head.

Alakë sagged, unconscious, hanging limply between her captors. Culnaur shrugged and turned away. She would survive or not; Culnaur had no such healing powers as the ones his lord Melkor possessed. Now, though, there was at least a chance of keeping the use of her in the rebuilding of the Orcs' race.

Briefly, he considered treating the prisoner who was in labor the same way, but he decided not to take the time or trouble. To the sound of her now-frantic screams as she seemed to realize that for some reason she was being deserted, Culnaur led his slaves with their burdens past her. Ignoring her trapped, wild eyes that stared after them in panic as they passed, he unlocked the doorway of a long, winding passageway that led to the surface outside the Great Gate.

* * *

Listening with the alertness that Oromë had taught him, Olórin caught a faint sound in the near distance. "This way!" he said, beckoning to Eönwë and the others. "There is something at the end of this passageway."

They followed the corridor swiftly. It ended, as they all seemed to, in a vast round cavern. This one held an enormous building within it, but that seemed to be deserted now. The sounds that Oromë's young huntsman Olórin had heard were coming from the other side of the cavern. From this close, it was starting to sound like a person's voice.

In seconds they came to a thick steel door, locked and without any kind of window or bars, set in the rough gray stone of the cavern wall. The voice was coming from somewhere just beyond this door, and as the Maiar drew near, Olórin could hear it clearly.

"Moranna, Moranna!" a sweet young voice was saying, in a tone of utter weariness and despair. "My dark gift, my little cursed one! If I could reach you, I would kill you." The voice's owner seemed to be choked by a sob. "Because I cannot, you will feel such pain..."

Behind it all, there was a thin small wailing sound.

_What is this?_ Olórin wondered in horror. He looked over at Eönwë, whose face was as grim as he knew his own must be.

With one hand, Eönwë pushed the door open. It would have taken a much stronger lock to stand against the righteous anger of Manwë's herald.

The door banged against the stone wall inside. Eönwë and Olórin entered, along with the rest of the small group of Maiar. The sight that greeted them tore at Olórin's soul.

A beautiful young woman who could only be one of the Quendi whom Oromë had met, her body terribly scarred by many wounds and filthy with black grime, was standing in obvious misery between two thick, round metal posts that stood as high as her shoulders. Her slender hands, terribly knobbed and twisted from some unthinkable injuries, were bound with cruel, heavy chains to the tops of the posts. Tears had left messy tracks through the black dust on her face. A hunted look of absolute fear flooded over her face and through her eyes as she saw the Maiar.

At her feet, lying in a pool of birth-blood and kicking her own little feet helplessly, was a small, crying child. The infant's body was cruelly misshapen, though she could not be old enough to have ever been wounded herself; there would have been no time for it to heal, even if such a tiny child could have survived such violent treatment. She was the one who had been wailing; the desperate words must have come from the prisoner who was obviously her mother.

The wonder that Olórin felt at his first clear sight of Ilúvatar's Children was overwhelmed by a wash of savage pain. _How could Melkor even __imagine__ the thought of doing such a thing?_ his mind protested in shock.

He stared, enraged, at the short, iron-red chains on the lovely, tormented mother's wrists. His eyes snapped like living fire, and he raised his right arm, pointing stiffly at one of the chains with all five fingers held close together.

"Break open!" he shouted in fury. The chain not only broke, it splintered into pieces under the force of Olórin's wrath. With a second, equally outraged cry of command, he shattered the chain on the anguished mother's left wrist.

Wide-eyed with helpless confusion, the Firstborn mother instantly bent down to the floor and snatched up her baby. She clutched the tiny, twisted girl to her chest, looking as if she meant to hold her and not let go even if Melkor himself, or all of the other Ainur, were to try and wrench the baby from her grasp.

Looking at them, Olórin suddenly and fiercely wanted nothing more than to lock his own arms around both of them and help the mother to hold on.

_But I would only terrify her if I moved towards them,_ he thought._ What she must have endured!_ He had never even imagined anyone feeling such pain as this youthful Elf-maiden must have been put through.

Several seconds after she had been freed from her chains, the mother suddenly looked fiercely around at Olórin and the others.

"Do not touch Moranna!" she warned. Her eyes and her voice were filled, at the same time, both with naked terror and with a towering wrath.

Eönwë stared back at her. "We will not harm you," he said, his voice kind but as stern and strong as it always was. "Do not fear us. You and your child will be safe now."

She looked at Manwë's herald with hunted, suspicious eyes. Backing away a few paces, looking as if she would clutch her child even more tightly if that were possible, she said nothing.

Olórin smiled gently at her, though he was seething inside. "He is right, my lady. No harm will come to you or your daughter. Whatever has happened to you, we will all protect you now."

Somehow, the terrified young mother seemed to see something in Olórin's eyes that awoke a feeling of trust in her exhausted spirit. With a strangled half-sob, suddenly seeming even more heartbreakingly young, she dashed towards him with her child and tucked them both firmly under his left arm. She was shivering deeply, though not from cold; she was obviously in absolute panic, at the end of her mind's strength.

Olórin held both of them close, feeling as though his heart might be torn in two between the overwhelming pity and anger that he felt.

"Dear girl," Melian said, stepping forward, "what is your name?"

The young one looked up, still huddling as tightly as she could into the reassuring strength of Olórin's embrace. "I don't remember," she said. The memory of years of horror was reflected in her eyes. Slowly, in a voice of desperate pain, she said, "I had a brother... he was captured with me. Where is he? And I do not know where my other children are... I only heard them screaming as they were carried away from me when they were born..."

Olórin's spirit seemed to freeze inside him at the look of unspeakable horror that now filled her eyes. "I am the mother of thirty-five children now," she whispered in a tone of absolute searing agony. "None of my people has ever borne more than four... except here. And always, every year, before every child, the poisons - Ai! Every time, I feel that I will die! And the burning fires - where is my brother? By the stars, I do not know what they have been doing to him!"

She suddenly looked up, full into Olórin's face. "Are the stars still there?" she asked softly. "Has the Horseman killed them, too?"

_What?_ Olórin thought in sudden confusion. _My lord Oromë, kill the stars?_ Then, in a flash of sudden insight, he understood what must have been happening. He remembered how Oromë had said that some of the Elves had run from him when he first saw them. _Melkor wanted the Quendi to fear Oromë so that we could not help them against him!_

"The stars are still there," he assured her. "The dark one has no power to touch them. See! Very soon we will show them to you."

He knew that he could not answer her other questions, about her brother and all of her other children, and that knowledge filled his heart with savage grief. Still, he could at least protect the young mother herself and this one beautiful, marred child, as he had promised.

"Come away now," he said softly, looking down into her haunted eyes that were still almost as terrified as when he had first seen her. "I will take you and your child to Nienna. She will care for you both."

* * *

"At the least you shall be allowed to see," Manwë said, his voice sounding arrogantly pitying to Melkor's ears as the defeated lord lay facedown and still chained on a smooth, flat expanse of soft grass. "You are still my brother. I will not allow you to remain in darkness while your fate is decided."

The blindfold was removed from Melkor's eyes. He looked up suddenly into dazzling brightness, finding himself surrounded by a light so brilliant that it was almost painful after the complete darkness in which he had been carried all the way from Utumno to whatever this place was. Unable to shield his eyes with his chained hands, he narrowed them to slits.

Manwë said nothing for a moment, seeming to understand and allow Melkor a moment to adjust to the light. Then, as his stern, sad face and short brown hair gradually came into focus before Melkor's slowly opening eyes, he finally spoke again.

"What are we to do with you, my dear brother?" Manwë asked in deep sorrow. "You have rebelled against the will of Ilúvatar almost since he created us. You have destroyed many of the fairest things we have wrought in this world." He gestured with an expression of poignant grief towards Yavanna, then looked around at all of the others as well.

His eyes sincerely pained, he looked back at Melkor. "Now you have tormented and twisted the beautiful Quendi, firstborn of Ilúvatar. Surely no crime could be more grievous than the agony that you have caused them! Yet I still love you, my brother. Would that you had not ruined yourself this way!"

Melkor's vision had been clearing further as Manwë spoke. Looking past his brother's throne, he suddenly made out the source of the brilliance that filled the area. On a smooth green mound not many paces away, there were two small trees unlike any that grew in Middle-earth. The one to Melkor's left was a gently glowing combination of green and silver, its branches heavy with many white flowers; but the tree on the right was shining so brightly that Melkor could barely look at it. A dazzling golden light poured out from among its vivid, youthful green leaves, blazing in rays of warm light from its golden clusters of flowers and its round yellow fruits. Astonished envy filled his heart for a moment, before he recalled that he was in dire peril.

Lowering his proud head, Melkor pressed his face into the green grass in front of Manwë's feet. He barely managed to keep his body from shaking with the agonized humiliation he felt. "Please, my brother," he said softly, desperately fighting to conceal his hatred, "forgive me! I should never have defied Ilúvatar. I..." He was at a loss for what else to say. How could he convince Manwë to free him?

He looked up, knowing that his face showed the suffering he felt at his captivity. "Have I not been in chains long enough?" he asked of Manwë. His heart screamed out a silent protest inside him as he deliberately abased himself, but Melkor knew that this was his only chance for freedom. "How can a Vala endure such bonds?"

"Do not look as if this is a new thing!" Tulkas snarled suddenly, speaking for the first time since he had challenged Melkor to single combat in the deep mines below Utumno. "For have you not bound countless of the Firstborn, and chained their spirits in suffering and slavery? Think not that we do not know where your Orcs came from!"

Melkor bit back a furious retort. As if the Quendi could ever be compared to him! But he was far too clever to think that such an answer would do him any good. Instead, he decided to use Tulkas' words to his own advantage.

"And never did I realize how wrong that was," he answered gravely, in his best impression of repentance. "I thought not enough about the meaning of my actions. Therefore I ask for pardon."

"Do not tell us that you could not see the pain in their eyes," Nienna said sadly. "Even you, Melkor, are not so blind."

Manwë nodded. "For this and your many other crimes, you shall not escape doom, Melkor," he said. "Mandos shall declare your fate." He turned to the Judge.

Mandos, the Vala that Melkor had known long ago as Námo but who was now apparently known by the name of the fortress he ruled, looked sternly at him. His eyes held no such pity as Manwë's did.

"There is only one prison in Arda strong enough to hold you," Mandos said slowly, "and that is mine. For three Ages you will be held there, bound as you are now in that same chain which Aulë has wrought for you."

He glanced briefly at the lord of Valinor who now sat silent on his nearby throne. "For the sake of your brother Manwë," he told the chained and furious Melkor, "I will not say that you must remain a captive forever. At the end of the three ages, you will be brought forth to stand trial again. Then you may plead for forgiveness; and if you have truly repented of your crimes, the Valar may be merciful."

Melkor looked around at the silent, accusing faces of the Valar and Maiar who surrounded him. He caught sight of Thuringwethil standing quietly among the others with her usual, unreadable expression.

Finding a small island of calmness in the middle of his rage and the growing panic that he was trying not to admit to himself that he felt, Melkor looked briefly into her dispassionate brown eyes. _Find Culnaur,_ he told her privately, making sure that none of the others heard his thought. _Tell him all that you have seen here. He deserves to know._

_I will._ Thuringwethil's face did not change, but her thought was strong and assured, and Melkor was confident in her loyalty.

Melkor's attention was drawn suddenly away from his secret messenger when he felt Tulkas grab him by the upper arms and pull him to a more or less upright position. "Mandos has spoken," the warrior said in a tone of grim satisfaction. Without another word, he picked Melkor up again as he had done at Utumno, slung him matter-of-factly over one shoulder, and strode off in what must be the direction of Mandos' prison. The mighty, chained Vala's fear and rage flared up again as his heart finally realized that he was trapped in this fate.

_Three Ages, wearing this chain!_ The need he felt in his spirit, to pull his hands away from the position in which they were bound, was already becoming desperately intense. Drawing on the angry will that he would have much preferred to use in physically striking out at his captors, Melkor somehow managed to keep himself from struggling. _They will not be allowed to see how much this hurts me!_ he resolved, turning his furious eyes of red fire on his brother Manwë in a glare of condemning accusation.

Manwë stared back, unmoved in spite of the grief that still shone in his blue eyes. He said no word; the trial was over, and Melkor's sentence had already been passed.

* * *

The cell door slammed closed behind the departing Tulkas and Mandos. Melkor, lying on the gray stone floor where Tulkas had dropped him, stared at the inside of the thick metal barrier that was set in one of the room's four featureless stone walls. The sound of a massive lock closing - something Melkor knew well from the many locked doors and chains in his own fortress - echoed with a deep clang from just outside the door.

Light filtered into the cell from somewhere, brighter than in most of the chambers of Utumno even though it was much dimmer than the somewhat dizzying radiance of Yavanna's two glowing Trees that filled all the air outside.

Knowing that he was no longer watched, Melkor finally allowed himself to struggle against the chain that bound him. Wrenching at it with all the power of his mighty arms, he fought to snap it, but it held as he had known it would. Frustration and pain burned acutely in his heart as his hands remained firmly locked behind him.

A moment later, Melkor turned deliberately in his chains. He moved slowly this time, feeling in his heart the beginnings of a painful acceptance of his captivity. He looked around the cell in all directions, his intent, fiery gaze taking in all of what little there was to see.

_This cell contains nothing but myself,_ he thought as his eyes came to rest for a moment on the blank, smooth gray ceiling. His heart, strong though it was, quailed at the thought of the long, empty time that stretched before him. _There are so many things I want to be doing! Three Ages here will be very difficult to bear._

* * *

Author's Note: So, Orolin, how was my portrayal of you in your hotheaded youth before Nienna got through teaching you as much patience as you learned from her later on?

Moranna, of course, is another of my Index-based Elvish names. As her mother said in the text, it's simply a combination of 'mor' (dark) and 'anna' (gift).

The idea of using a small group of pregnant females and a few males to rebuild a population is my sister Razzle's. (Yeah, I know - like a lot of Culnaur's contributions!) She thought of this one quite some time ago, though, before I even started "The Last Note." She originally meant it for a sci-fi type plot, like a colony spaceship, but has very generously allowed me to use the idea here. She still may well use it somewhere else; so if you see it in something by Razzle later on, it IS her idea and she just let me use it in my fic too! By the way, you really should go and read some of her stories. I promise, I am NOT a better writer than her! If you're reading my fanfiction, you ought to like Razzle's too. And she even has a few Silmarillion fanfics. So check out her author profile, okay? :)


	11. Chapter 11: Journey to Angband

Author's Note: Please forgive me for not updating sooner! I can't tell you all how much I appreciate the many story hits I keep getting for this fic, month after month, in all the time since my last update. And of course, the incredible collection of glowing reviews. You guys still care even though I've been so delinquent in updating! Thank you!

I'm especially awestruck by the amazing review I just got from Turambar Draugmor. What compliments! _Ai!_ I wish it had been a signed review so I could reply directly! As it is, Turambar: I hope you see this update and know that I'm still writing this fic and I WILL finish it, no matter how long it's been. In fact, it's largely your review that has inspired me to update RIGHT NOW, so you see, you're doing honor to your chosen name and definitely influencing the destiny of this fic!

Now for the dedication. I don't do this every chapter, of course, but sometimes I just have to. This chapter's for you, Sauron Gorthaur! By which I mean the FF.N author who goes by that pen name, naturally. ^_^

* * *

Chapter 11: Journey to Angband

"Leave him alone!" a voice snarled. "Or I'll rip your hands off, see?"

Terrified at this awful threat, the slowly awakening young Orc-soldier drew himself back away from the voice. Vaguely, his confused mind heard a low assortment of mumbling, snarls, and cursing, and a general sound of feet shuffling away a short distance.

"There, now," the same voice said, sounding completely different. At the same time, he felt a cool, rough hand touching his face - not cruelly? Somehow, he found the sensation comforting. "I won't let those rabble hurt you. You've been through enough, you poor, young child."

He found the strength to bristle at that. He wasn't a child! He had already lived for... how long? He cast about in his mind for an answer. _Two centuries..._

Then he tensed, panicking again. _This is a trick!_ he thought frantically. _Master always does this - the healing, the comforting touch, then more agony -_

Instantly he curled himself into a tight ball, as he had done in that unspeakable time not so long ago when the demon was burning him. A wave of deeply frightened trembling shook his cruelly scarred young body.

_The flames... burning, burning..._ He tried to wrench his mind out of that time, but it was hard. With an effort, he forced his thoughts forward to what had happened next.

He could barely even stand to think about the encounter with his Lord, when he had pleaded for mercy but been handed back to the demon in spite of his screams. He had never been so terrified as when he thought he would be carried back to that dark den to be burned again...

_Never?_ he wondered. _There was one time more terrifying, wasn't there?_ He saw a brief flash of a sweet, panicked face, someone being pulled away from him -

It was gone. Still shuddering, his arms wrapped around his head and pressing it tightly towards his body, he remembered the awful relief when the demon had left him at a building called the Barracks, rather than carrying him back to the dark cave of his torment.

He had learned quickly to do everything that was asked of him, obeying every order with terrified alacrity. It would not do to risk displeasing his Master and being returned to the burning agony again...

Then, only a few weeks later, the fortress had exploded into chaos. He had panicked, wanting nothing more than to hide; but he had been ordered into battle and had obeyed in desperate fear. Somehow he had survived, and found himself fleeing wildly along with hundreds of the other Orcs as enemies swept through the dark caverns.

He remembered little of the journey, except that they had run always eastward, away from the furious attack that had come thundering from the West. Finally, many days later, they had crossed a tall mountain range and escaped onto the broad, empty plains beyond it.

Something in this new land felt safer than the places they had been before, as if it was beyond their dark Lord's power... or at least his attention. The young soldier recalled stumbling, exhausted and badly frightened, down the last slopes of the rocky foothills. Then he had fallen into the blackness of a deep sleep.

His memories brought him sharply up against the present. He focused on the sounds he was hearing, and understood the same gentle, gravelly voice as before. "Now see here!" the voice said. "This is quite enough! Sit up, now."

Panic shot through him. _An order!_ He knew hazily that he did not have to obey, that they had escaped and there were no demons or Master to punish him if he did not. But he was already sitting up, his back perfectly straight just as his training demanded, before he had any time to think of such things at all.

The young Orc opened a pair of exquisite black eyes that had been transformed by his suffering into deep, liquid pools of pain. Standing in front of him was a badly stooped old Orc soldier, his gray eyes kind in his hideously grotesque face.

"That's better!" the old warrior said, clapping him roughly but kindly on the shoulder. "You'd better start protecting yourself, now, or I can't be expected to keep them all off you!"

The frightened young soldier cringed back, shuddering again, as he tried to convince himself that there was no reason to expect a blow. "Why are you helping me?" he asked finally.

"Because I've still got my heart in spite of all they've done to me," the old one said gruffly. "I saw your hair an' your clothes when that devil brought you to the barracks. You must've had more pain than you could keep inside you, and I won't let any of these lads give you extra just because they're lookin' for some fun." He smiled kindly, sharp teeth showing between his broad gray lips. "I am Kemendur. I don't know what your name is, so I'm going to call you Girith: 'shuddering'. But see here, you're going to have to get a sight braver if you want to keep yourself safe!"

_Girith..._ He could not remember what he had once been called, either - but it felt incredibly natural to have a name again. _We are the Quendi, we name everything..._ Where had that thought come from? Shaking it off, he looked around.

They were still at the feet of the mountains that they had escaped over. Now there was a kind of encampment there, with small fires and rough shelters that had all been built out of the small branches and shrubs that seemed to be everywhere here.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of escaped Orcs scurried about the entire area. Girith looked at all of them, wondering which ones had been threatening him before and whether they would return.

Then he felt his heart grow harder and less afraid, and he snarled savagely as he realized something. _No one here is stronger than I am!_

He looked back at Kemendur. "Don't worry," he said, more sternly than he had said anything in a long time. It was both a statement of grateful reassurance and a harsh, warning threat. "I will protect myself."

* * *

In the wild lands west of ruined Utumno, another, much smaller band of Orcs travelled through Yavanna's dense forest with their Maia lord. They moved quickly in spite of the bound females who encumbered their progress. Still, after they had covered many miles, Culnaur saw that his burdened warriors were beginning to slow. It was a slight thing, but he knew that if he let them become seriously tired, it would interfere with the speed and secrecy he needed for this desperate journey.

"That's far enough for now," he said quietly in his clear, strong voice, calling a halt. The Orcs unquestioningly came to a stop, setting down the frightened women they carried, then stood crisply tall again and looked to their master for further orders.

"Rest," Culnaur told them, gesturing calmly with his hand. "We will not travel again for some hours. Eat some dried meat from your packs, and feed some to the women. I hear water moving nearby; go and get some."

There was a general low murmur of relief and pleasure among the soldiers as they set about their agreeable tasks. Culnaur paid them no heed. Stepping quietly between them, he moved to examine the huddled group of breeding-women.

The pregnant slaves, limited in their movements by the ropes about their hands and feet, still managed to shrink back in fear from Culnaur as he moved among them. Tears were on several of their faces, while others simply looked pale and grim. A feeling of horror and hopelessness pervaded all of the firmly bound captives, and their eyes of terror and pain never left his face.

Culnaur stooped down to grasp one by the shoulder. She cried out softly in alarm at his touch, but he did not hurt her. Instead, he simply turned her body away from him to look at her hands. Their color was good beneath the black dirt, and the wrists had not swollen. His soldiers knew well how to tie a captive without causing damage. Prisoners in the keeping of Culnaur and Melkor came to harm only when and as it suited their Lords.

The thought of Melkor brought a deep dismay back to Culnaur's heart. He looked up through a tracery of heavy branches to the starlit sky, and thought of Varda and their other enemies who had dragged Melkor away in chains. _Where is my Lord Melkor now?_ he wondered. Then, with the strict discipline that he demanded of his own mind no less than from his servants, he brought his attention back to the here-and-now.

The Orc-female's pinned hands were twisting in terror behind the small of her back, the deeply scarred fingers clenching and unclenching in her long matted hair. Culnaur laughed suddenly, feeling a cruel enjoyment at the sight of her fear. He reveled in the knowledge of her helplessness and his own power.

It was also, he knew, something he could use.

Casually pushing her down to sprawl face-first on the ground as he let go of her shoulder, he stood tall and looked commandingly down on the females. "We have a long journey ahead of us," he told them sternly. "We will march for many days. The soldiers have carried you long enough!" He paused briefly, gazing into one desperate scarred face and then another. "I am going to have your feet unbound," he said. "When we march again, you will walk on your own. None of you will try to escape, of course."

Their fear of him left no need of threats to ensure their obedience. He read in all their faces that they would do exactly as he bid, without any thought of defying his will.

With this minor problem of transporting the Orc-mothers solved, Culnaur turned his attention to Alakë. She was still unconscious from his blow to her head, and the bruise was spreading from her left brow above her ear to her chin, with a purple thumbprint across her nose. Even when the young Maia shook her sharply by the front of her ragged dress, she did not stir. But her breathing was steady, and her face behind the bruise bore a look closer to a deep sleep than to sickness or death.

_She will probably live,_ Melkor's lieutenant thought. He turned away and spoke quietly to a nearby soldier, giving instructions for the untying of the other women's feet.

"Alakë is too defiant," he warned next. "Leave her fully bound, lest she should awake and try to run away or do herself or us some mischief!"

He glanced down at Alakë's slight frame as she lay still on the ground to his left, and a thought struck him. Even with the added weight of her child, she would be no burden to his Ainu strength. _It will be better, strong as my warriors are, to conserve their strength as much as I can for now. And this small thing is one that I can do easily._

"For the rest of our journey," he told the attentive Orc-soldier standing before him, "I will carry her myself."

* * *

A few days later, as they drew near to the lands about Angband (or whatever they might still find of it), Culnaur felt the approach of Thuringwethil. He looked up to the western sky and saw her flying there, distant and small as a speck but clear to his sight. Her long brown hair streamed behind her, blending with the color of her simple brown dress. Thuringwethil had never cared for adornments, disdaining them as unuseful. Yet she was a Maia, and her beauty needed no ornament, just as the rest of the Ainur's did not.

But such thoughts were not central to Culnaur's mind just then, though he noted them. Instead he quickly called a halt, laying down Alakë's limp but still-breathing form beneath a tree. As the others stopped around him, he stood eagerly awaiting Thuringwethil's tidings. His back was straight, and his eyes were fixed intently on her as she drew speedily nearer.

With a swift whirring of her great, leathery brown wings, she came to a smooth landing before him. She bowed quickly and matter-of-factly, but as always, the gesture was sincere. Fearlessly she met his smouldering yellow eyes.

"What news from Valinor?" Culnaur asked his winged messenger at once. "What news of our lord and leader Melkor? When last I saw him, he had just been thrown down by Tulkas and bound with the Valar's shameful chain." He spoke angrily, and if the eyes of some of his Quendi captives flashed at his mention of chains, he did not notice. All his attention was focused on his fellow Maia.

"They have doomed Melkor to three Ages of imprisonment in the dungeon called Mandos, which Námo rules," Thuringwethil said. "Though they have taken to addressing Námo himself as Mandos, recently." She shrugged. "The names are unimportant, I suppose, but you and Melkor have both always commanded me to tell you everything I discover."

Culnaur nodded once in agreement, not interrupting her report in spite of his dismay at the tidings she brought.

Then she gave a concise, detailed account of Melkor's trial and what had passed afterward. "I do not think that Melkor will escape," Thuringwethil concluded. "I tried to get into Mandos' prison in the form of a small bat, but I would not have been able to enter without being noticed. It seems to be entirely impregnable. There is only the one main entrance, which is very well guarded. And," she added, "he was still bound with Aulë's chain when Tulkas carried him inside."

_This is a grievous blow,_ Culnaur thought in frustration. Then he took hold of his determination. "He will not want us to be idle during those ages," he told Thuringwethil. "I am returning to Angband. The Valar left suddenly before destroying all of its secret places. I will start in the depths and delve a new, hidden fortress that they will not find even if they return to search. When Lord Melkor is freed, he will find great strength waiting for him there."

Thuringwethil nodded calmly. Culnaur fixed his bright red-gold eyes on her. "I need to rely on you too," he said. "I want you to fly far and wide, searching out everything you can discover of what passes both in Middle-earth and in Valinor. If Melkor is being held in a prison cell, he will have no way of knowing what happens in the outside world during his imprisonment. We will need to be ready to tell him all we can when he returns." Giving his messenger and spy an even more intent look, Culnaur added a final command. "At no time and for no reason are you to reveal yourself as our servant, or allow the Valar to suspect you in any way! That is more important now than it has ever been. I cannot go to Valinor myself; I am far too well known, and would be recognized in any form I might take. You must remain free to observe what happens there, and to get word of our own doings to Melkor as soon as he is free."

"Of course," Thuringwethil said, so quietly assured that Culnaur realized he would not have needed to give her that command. She bowed gracefully before him, her wings half-spreading. Then she straightened and sprang into the air in the same movement, taking off in a silent flurry of flapping wings. _I will report well to you, my Lord,_ she sent back to him as she flew off into the distance above the trees, _for your sake and for Melkor's._

* * *

In the dungeons of Námo, Melkor lay clenched in his long iron chain, feeling far more like Culnaur's Quendi prisoners than he knew. It was an outrage to his soul to be bound thus, after all the time he had lived free since his creation. Even now, at times he still found himself wrenching at his chains again almost before he realized it, twisting and writhing as he jerked his body about in a vain attempt to free himself. But the heavy cuffs on his wrists and ankles held uncompromisingly, and the chains around his body did not loosen. His bonds were as unshakeable as the judgement of the Valar.

Melkor knew, to the last hour, exactly how many days had passed since he was first brought here. As a Vala, his sense of such things was absolute, and it did not desert him now; but never had such a short time felt so long to him. It had not been very many days at all, and now he was well and truly terrified of the remaining years.

Yet even as his fear grew day by day, his anger matched its pace and then outstripped it.

_I wonder what my friends are doing._ The calmer thought penetrated his rage and brought him cool consideration for a moment. _I know that Thuringwethil will have told Culnaur of my doom, and that however long, it __does__ have an end._ His mind quickly shied away from the thought of the Valar _not_ freeing him when the three Ages had ended.

_When I am free,_ he continued resolutely inside his shaken, furious heart, _they will be waiting. They are loyal to me; I know they will not be idle._

To his astonishment, he found himself smiling as his thought touched briefly on his unruly Valaraukar. _My fire-scourges,_ he thought,_ may be another matter. Their hearts were always given more to destruction than to obedience._ He laughed aloud, forgetting his pain for a second. _Like mine! No wonder they were drawn to me of old. Still, some may prove faithful and some may not. But those who are not will feel my wrath when I return, and will find themselves once again constrained to my will._

Melkor's mirth faded, replaced by an icy realization. _I also will not be idle,_ he vowed suddenly. _There is one part of my being that they have not bound, nor can they; and that is my mind. Yet is that not the greatest part of who I truly am?_

His eyes smouldered like coals for a long, timeless moment, then blazed forth with a fierce red fire. _The things I will do in the next three Ages,_ he resolved, his thought's voice a deep, silent growl in the pit of his chest, _will bring ruin to them all in the end._

* * *

After Thuringwethil had departed, Culnaur turned to his slaves. His eyes widened in surprise at an unexpected sight.

One of the slaves was crouched next to the still-unaware Alakë, clutching a handful of long leaves. Chewing up one of the leaves, he pressed the pulp onto the dark, ugly bruises that covered the left side of Alakë's face where Culnaur had struck her.

"What are you doing?" Culnaur demanded. "I gave you no such orders! Explain yourself quickly, slave."

The Orc, startled, dropped the leaves and quickly stood up. "Ya caught me 'round here, Lord," he said, scuffling his feet and looking up at Culnaur in fear but also with a cunning hope. "Y'like the brats ya get from this one, right? I've heard talk. So if I saves the gal for ya, maybe you'll reward me, that so?"

Fascinated, Culnaur bent over and picked up the dropped leaves. Ignoring the Orc who shrank back at his approach, he turned them over in his hand, examining them. They were not one of the varieties of poisons with which he was familiar, and that was where his expertise with Yavanna's plant life more or less ended.

He lifted his eyes to stare at the cringing Orc. "You remember this plant from before you were enslaved?" he asked. Completely absorbed in his own intellectual curiosity, he spoke to the pitiful creature almost as he would to an equal.

The Orc straightened watchfully, sensing no threat from Culnaur at the moment. "I think so," he said. "It's good for healin'. Fell out of a tree once, when I was little, and busted my leg. Mama -" A distant memory seemed to flash through his eyes for an instant at that word, and he paused. "Mama put some o' this stuff on my leg, an' it healed up quick. Figured maybe it'd do the same for your gal Alakë there."

He stared into Culnaur's eyes, hesitant but bold. "Maybe she oughta eat it, too. She's hit pretty bad or she'd a woken up by now." Suddenly he cowered down until he was bent almost double, throwing up his hands in a gesture of abject terror to shield his head, as he seemed to recall that it was Culnaur himself who had struck Alakë.

Culnaur laughed, his shoulders shaking with mirth as he tossed back his black-haired head. "I certainly did hit her hard!" he exclaimed. "I wanted to. Otherwise, as you said, she might have woken up and started that screaming of hers to bring our enemies down on us." As the Orc cautiously looked up between his slightly lowered hands, Culnaur smiled at him. "I surely will reward you," he said. "Go ahead and feed her the leaves! But call all the others over here first and teach them what you are doing. And when we reach Angband, I want you to find out if any of them knows any other healing tricks, and make sure that all of you learn everything of that kind that any one of you knows now."

He smiled again, more darkly. "If any of the females won't tell you, bring them to me. I will make sure they do as you say."

_So they still have knowledge of healing abilities, as the free Quendi do,_ Culnaur thought as the elated Orc-soldier started to scurry around, gathering up his companions. _That will make the Orcs even more valuable as slaves._ Delighted, he began to ponder a suitable reward for the one who had revealed the idea to him. Culnaur had every intention of keeping his word.

* * *

Culnaur began to feel more agitated as they approached the ruined heap that had been Angband. Tumbled hills of rubble stood in place of his proud and beautiful fortress. Even from far away, the lingering smoke of its destruction trailed in slender wisps up into the unforgiving starlit sky.

From up close, the damage was even more wretched to see. There was no sign of the great, armored gates that had once led into the palace. All was broken, jagged pieces of wall and fragments of twisted metal. Culnaur seethed inside, snarling aloud at the sheer waste of his beautiful creation.

"And yet," he said under his breath, "we still have our most valuable creations." He glanced down at Alakë sleeping in his arms, then back at the other Orcs. "At least, some of them. Enough to recover in time. And who knows how much more of our work I may find undamaged far below this wretched heap?"

With an unerring knowledge of the ways of his own home, Culnaur led the Orc-slaves to a spot that looked no different than any other part of the ruin. Their way was blocked by a horse-tall slab of rock, canted on an angle across the smaller pieces behind it. Culnaur stopped before it and stood still for a moment, then turned around to hand Alakë over to another slave. Facing forward again, he gazed in brief concentration at the stone.

"Stand back," he warned. The patter of running feet told him that his Orcs had obeyed almost before he finished speaking. Placing his hands flat against the angled surface of the stone, he called forth his power that had slept for a time. The stone glowed in two orange patches around his hands, then hissed and steamed. Gradually the entire slab turned orange and then melted into yellow-gold liquid. The lava slid away before his hands, leaving them poised in midair. In seconds it flowed away, sizzling harmlessly, across his feet and down into the pitted ground.

Culnaur dropped his hands. Before him there now gaped a dark hole, into which his fierce eyes could see perfectly, leading away through the jagged rubble. He knew it by heart, and recognized it on sight, however damaged; it was the front entry hall of his great castle.

"Come now," he said, stepping quickly through with his Orcs a pace behind him. After leading them a short way inside, he motioned them to stop. Then he walked back alone for several long paces and put his hands against the cracked and leaning walls. With a swift push against the stone, he brought the whole section of the hallway crashing down to seal the entrance they had just used. Small rocks shivered and thudded down around him, but the collapse was small and well-contained. Culnaur and his slaves and helpers had built Angband well.

He looked in faint amusement at his slaves, seeing them gape in astonishment at him. "Next time we leave this place," he told them, "it will be through new tunnels we will delve in other directions. There is to be no hint to any searchers that we have ever come back here, let alone that we are building a force again." With that he turned once more and led them resolutely down into the shattered remains of his home.

* * *

"What are you doing to me?" Alakë screamed, fighting aganst her bonds in total disorientation. "Stop it! I haven't done anything, why are you hurting me?"

Culnaur stared at her in dismay. She had finally regained awareness moments earlier, as he and the Orcs were descending through the rubble-choked hallways of what had been Angband, searching for any areas that were still sound. Her strength seemed to have returned, but her mind was confused. She had also gone suddenly into labor, almost a month early.

"No one is tormenting you, fool girl!" Culnaur snapped. Frustration - at his and Melkor's crushing defeat, Melkor's capture, and the ruin of the kingdom they had worked so hard to build - was taking its toll on his spirit. "You're giving birth."

Alakë gave him a wild glare, panting for breath as the contractions of her belly muscles paused for a moment. "Stop it!" she said again, clearly having understood none of what he said.

Culnaur shook his head, giving up on the idea of reasoning with the rebellious, half-mad slave. He turned his attention to the problem of how to handle the actual delivery of her Orc-whelp. _She can't give birth with her feet tied together!_ he thought. But there were no birthing posts in Angband, which had originally been built as a mere outpost of Melkor's kingdom. Elven prisoners had indeed been tormented there, at times, to break their wills or to twist the spirits of the other slaves who were forced to harm them, but the actual breeding of the Orcs had always taken place at Utumno.

Sighing in weary irritation, Culnaur signaled his slaves to resume their slow, uneven downward march. They picked their way through the ruins of his home, heading in a slightly different direction now as Culnaur led them towards the place where one of the deepest halls of torment had been. He hoped it was still there; some place would need to be found at once with chains that could be used to hold Alakë while she delivered her child.

* * *

The chamber was still there, and undamaged. At Culnaur's direction, two of the Orc-warriors waited until one of Alakë's contractions started, then quickly untied her hands and locked them into a pair of chains that were attached to one wall about a foot above her head. Helplessly trapped in the grip of her birthing-pains and screaming with agony, she had no opportunity to struggle before she was once again firmly bound.

One of the Orcs held Alakë's legs down while the other untied her ankles. Then they both backed away in a hurry, narrowly avoiding her furious kicks even though they had expected no less.

Shaking his head, Culnaur led the other slaves away towards the labyrinth of passages on the other side of the chamber. Alakë's mad screams of "Stop it! You monster..." dwindled behind them as they went. Culnaur dismissed the slave-woman temporarily from his mind, searching through his memories of this deepest part of Angband to try and think up the best areas to use as temporary quarters for his slaves.

* * *

Two hours later, the males were settled in an open cavern with a stream of water running through it where they could drink, and the pregnant females had been unbound and left in a large, barred prison cell that was at least able to be locked and therefore secure against any chance of escape. Culnaur, his spirit much less weary and discouraged now that he was at least starting to reclaim his home, instructed the slave who had first healed Alakë to accompany him and returned to the chamber where they had left her.

Alakë's screams of pain and fury were audible long before they reached the actual torture cavern. _At least she is still alive,_ Culnaur thought. It was good news, especially if she could be kept that way. As for her child, there would be no way to know until after the birth if it would survive.

_That is less important, though. She has given birth to hundreds of whelps, and there will be many more if she survives, regardless of what happens to this one._

Culnaur and the Orc-healer kept watch over the confused, screaming Alakë for the rest of the hours of her labor, ignoring her raving shrieks of accusation as she continued to believe that she was being put through some kind of deliberate torture. Now that they had arrived and there was nothing else pressing that needed to be done, the master of Angband could afford the time to make sure - if possible - that he did not lose this valuable breeding slave.

Finally, the healer stood with a living infant in his hands. The Orc-child was much smaller than most, but it was quite strong and bawling loudly. Culnaur was pleased; it was a promising beginning for his efforts to rebuild what the Valar had destroyed of his and Melkor's realm.

Alakë, breathing heavily, looked up as she heard the infant's wails. "No..." she breathed in suddenly clear-eyed horror, looking at the child. "Not my baby, again!" Sounding more defeated than Culnaur had ever heard her, she whispered, "Please..." Her eyes, usually so fiercely rebellious, sought out Culnaur's face and seemed to beseech him desperately for mercy. "Don't take him."

Culnaur laughed in disbelief. He jerked his head to the side, signaling the Orc-healer to carry the whelp away. The healer shot Alakë a quick look of helpless pity, then did as Culnaur had ordered.

_"No!"_ Alakë threw herself against her chains, fighting wildly as her child and the soldier who held him disappeared into the shadows at the far end of the cavern. "No! No! Bring him back!" Sobbing, she let her entire body go limp as they vanished from sight. A moment later, though, she pushed herself upright again. Tears were running freely down her face.

"Don't you know how to care?" she asked Culnaur plaintively in an oddly quiet voice. "You have a heart, don't you?"

Culnaur stared at her in some confusion. "Yes, I have a heart!" he said. "Ilúvatar created me with one, the same as every creature. But why does that mean that I should care about the likes of _you?_" he asked disdainfully. "You're nothing but a pathetic Orc."

"I'm _not_ an Orc!" she spat, glaring fearlessly at him. "My children may be, but I am Alakë of the Quendi! And if I was free," she added viciously, her voice filled with pure hatred, "I'd gut you where you stand and rip your body to shreds, stinkin' devil that you are or not."

Looking into the enraged, savage face in front of him, as Alakë bared her teeth in a wordless snarl, Culnaur had no doubt that she would try.

* * *

Author's Note: This chapter is offered, with utmost respect, for the historical memory - and for the modern truth around our world in 2012 - of all the human slaves and oppressed people who have been, and still are, held imprisoned and used in such shameful and evil ways. May we as a species finally grow up and stop doing such things. _Forever._

On a far less sober note, keep watch for my Chapter 12: Deep Forges! I don't know how long it will take me, but it _will_ be forthcoming.


End file.
